


Harbor

by satariraine



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prosthesis, Relationship Study, Sheith Big Bang 2017, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 14:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12134970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satariraine/pseuds/satariraine
Summary: Shiro's the lone bartender of a sleepy seaside town, serving drinks to tourists and busy workers while adjusting to life after an accident that ended his piloting career. Keith's a wanderer who shows up one day with a knife and a sketchbook, searching for new and quiet places, and soon finds himself in Shiro's company, something new and quiet and unexpected.Existing together isn't much, trading lonely days for simple conversation. But it's enough.





	Harbor

**Author's Note:**

> So, here it is. My entry for the sheithbigbang is both my first time ever really writing the pair as well as my first time writing a full-fledged AU. It kind of went in different directions than what I had planned but the basic core of it is there, and I hope it comes across okay: a point in time where Shiro and Keith can meet and just exist with one another. 
> 
> The artist I was paired with, Bluealaris, drew some [amazing art](http://bluealaris.tumblr.com/post/165526755368/sheith-big-bang-harbor-by-satariraine-a) for this story. Downright beautiful watercolors, and she went above and beyond and drew more than just one picture! But she also inspired me, and cheered me on when I felt that this wasn't really worth anyone's time. She also coined the title and made me fall even more in love with this pairing, and I honestly owe a lot to her. Thank you, Blue - you've been the best person I could've been paired with for this, and I hope the end result makes you happy. 
> 
> I could ramble on but that would turn into a fic in itself. All in all, despite its flaws, I hope this is a story that'll make someone happy. And thank you for reading. It means so much to me.

In the distance ahead, the bus steers towards the sidewalk and begins to slow.

Shiro yawns. Against the orchestra of sounds, the symphony of a bus stop in the early hours of the evening, the sound doesn’t travel far. Employees stand around in business casual, families lurk in groups along the open spaces of the sidewalk. There’s a kid standing near the edge of the bus stop. From where he waits towards the back of the crowd, Shiro can see their red hair and how it stands out against the world of grey and white and passing blurs out on the road. He finds himself tracing the braid dangling down their back as the screech of brakes echo out over the rush of traffic.

The door opens and a loudspeaker clicks on, saying the name of the stop as the bus stutters back and settles on its wheels. He hears the crackled audio and he checks his phone out of habit, finding that it’s a little bit past five o’clock. There is another bus scheduled to stop here sometime later in the evening, but he doesn’t feel up to waiting any longer. With a warning attached to the upcoming weather and his place easily forty-five minutes away with this kind of traffic, it just doesn’t seem appealing to stay.

From what the weather channel said, the storm wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow morning.  And yet the clouds over the horizon, peeking from behind the towering rooftops, are already burnt charcoal and heavy. Wishful thinking on the news’ part, if Shiro had to guess.

As he boards, walking almost heel to toe with the crowd, Shiro wonders if the repairman already stopped by the bar to fix the roof. Behind the wheel, the driver looks tired but there’s a smile there, wrinkling the lines around his eyes and lips. Shiro fishes out a few worn bills from his wallet and folds them into the driver’s hand before walking down the aisle, settling for a (surprisingly) empty seat towards the back.

Sitting down, he notices the red-haired stranger beside him on the adjacent seat. It’s a young girl, early twenties in age at most, and she’s sporting a band-aid on her cheek and shadows under her eyes. Tired, easily so, a feeling Shiro knows well, but she still smiles at him when she catches him glancing over.

They share a yawn. She looks a little more worse for wear than Shiro does. After a moment of debating, he passes her the lone soda from his grocery bag. She’s quick to be flustered, confused, but he assures her it’s fine, that she looks like she could use it, and her reply is a whispered “Thank you, sir” set in a hushed tone. Shiro spends the next few minutes looking around the bus with a matching smile.

A man dressed in an army uniform – _Air Force,_ Shiro thinks – walks down the aisle and tips the rim of his cap when he notices Shiro, notices the scar running partially jagged across his nose. Shiro smiles, almost amused, and tugs the sleeve of his jacket down over his right arm. The man sits behind Shiro and leans against the window and, after a moment, starts to tap his foot. Shiro tries not to wonder what he’s assuming about his, uh, conditions.

In his pocket, his phone begins to buzz. The caller ID flashes the name Coran – with cartoon stars on either side, courtesy of Allura’s (cute) meddling. He slides his finger over to answer the call.

“Hello?”

The receiver against his ear crackles at the start, a short rush of static.

“ _Hello there, Number One_ ,” comes Coran’s voice, happy and steady, a bit far away. He probably has him on speaker. “ _Are you on your way back yet?”_

“Yeah,” he replies, smiling at the nickname before glancing down at the bag in the seat beside him. A plastic bag weighed down with snacks (minus one soda) and a manila folder of papers placed neatly on the bottom, he traces all the words he can see – chocolate, orange-flavored, Participant: _Takashi Shirogane_ , prosthesis program – and sighs. He closes his eyes as the sounds of Coran cooking echo through the phone. It sounds like the dull thud of steel on wood, he’s probably using the cutting board right now. “Didn’t want to take my chances with the storm coming.”

The bus lurches forward, intent on its trek. Shiro leans back in his seat, arm pressed against the window, and stares up at the rafters half-full of people’s belongings. A blue duffle bag, a rainbow satchel. Oh, someone left an empty fast food bag up there.

Steam whistles through the receiver. Shiro wonders if he’s making tea. The Alfor Special: redbush tea, with honey and lemon. Now he misses that drink.

“ _Good. I don’t want you caught up in that weather, my boy._ ”

“You know me, Coran. I’m careful.”

“ _You are, but nature is of another sort._ ” The thudding stops, replaced by a scraping sound. Shiro smiles to himself as he tries to guess what the older gentleman is cooking. His stomach growls, reminding him why he stopped by the convenience store before taking the bus – the chocolate bar sits over the folder, quietly tempting. “ _Oh, did someone come by and fix that— what was it?”_

“Some paneling near one of the skylights got damaged, and it was causing a leak.” Shiro sighs. The joys of working and living in a building easily over fifty years old. “He should’ve been done a half-hour ago but I guess I’ll find out when I get home.”

The rhythm of the bus weaving along the road with other vehicles shakes the floor. Looking outside the window, watching the expanse of flat fields and a far-off forest come into view beyond the fading range of the city, he sighs. Everything is covered in clouds, the storm creeping closer. Some people have started to look around in what he guesses is nervous energy, the anxiousness of getting home safe. The woman with the auburn curls, at the front of the bus, is loudly relaying the weather updates to the driver.

Shiro hums and wonders if he should heat up leftovers for dinner tonight.

Breathing in then out, he settles against the window. A quick glance at the time on his phone, above Coran’s name, below the notification of unread emails, tells him he’s about a half-hour away from home.

“ _I sure hope so. You’re good with business, but I don’t think you’d be up for running a swimming pool._ ”

It takes him a minute to get the joke, but Shiro laughs. “It’d be pointless considering the ocean’s a short walk away.”

Coran laughs with him, a warm sound Shiro closes his eyes to. A particularly unsteady bump rustles the bag beside him and the ones overhead. Shiro wraps his hand, his metal one, on the railing along the top of the seat. He feels the bus move through the fabric of his glove, the reverberations that shake and vibrate their way up his entire arm. It hurts, but he guesses that’s from the strain caused by his session earlier. The whole reason he traveled out of town, the once a month concept that forces him away from familiarity.

He sighs, unwillingly into the phone. Coran replies with a hum; he’s not on speakerphone anymore.

“ _You sound tired._ ”

“It’s, ah-- it’s been a long day, Coran.”

“ _I know, my boy,_ ” he says after a pause, and Shiro believes him. “ _I know._ ”

Something about Coran’s tone leaves a question lingering along the roof of his mouth, pressing against the back of his teeth, heavy on his tongue. He opens his mouth and is promptly cut off; there’s a gasp beside him followed by a subdued shout. The red-haired stranger has her nose in a book, the cover worn. She looks surprised and when she notices Shiro’s curious gaze, her cheeks flush and she presses her nose into the inside of the spine. Shiro can’t help a quiet laugh as he looks around to give her privacy with her embarrassment, his question pushed towards the back of his mind.

Overhead, outside, he notices the sections of forest rising up into the shape of mountains. Curving in closer and closer near the road. He can’t see it but he knows - the ocean is overhead the crest.

“I think we’re about to hit a break in reception, I’ll lose you. Want me to call you when I’m back?” He asks. He hopes Coran ignores the strain in his voice; he probably should’ve bought more than one soda.

“ _Anytime you want, Shiro - I’m always here._ ”

“Okay. Tell Allura I said hello.”

Something shifts in Coran’s voice, an affectionate tone that unmistakably belongs to the concept of the woman in question. Shiro can’t blame Coran’s attachment, wouldn’t dare to ever try.

“ _She’ll be happy - but will do! Be safe on your way back._ ”

And maybe some of that affection belongs to him, too.

“I will. Bye, Coran.”

He hangs up seconds before the darkness of the clouds overhead drown the bus in shadow. The fading glow from his screen blends into the sight of the girl’s eyes watching him. Next to him, in that same soothing tone as before, she asks, “You okay?”

It takes him a moment to hear his arm rattling against the railing. Metal against metal, it dawns on him that he’s shaking. He uncoils his fingers, drops his arm, leaving it to rustle the top of the grocery bag. His fingers press into it, feeling around for the cover of the folder. When he feels it, he takes a set of breaths and presses his free hand over the sleeve of his coat, against the wrist of his prosthetic.

He notices her book is in her lap, folded over her knee. He doesn’t recognize the title.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just a little carsick, I guess.”

The fake laughter in his voice must have satisfied her somehow. She laughs along and turns to pick up her book. He watches her take a sip of the soda he gave her before he looks away, back towards the window. Everything looks blurry when he breathes against the glass.

Soon enough, he sees the start of the ocean on the horizon.

 

 

 

Shiro can tell within moments of walking into the bar that the repairman had already finished his job and was long gone from the bar. The faint chill that had been lurking near the staircase is gone, and there’s a used, empty glass on the edge of the bar counter with a receipt underneath, wrinkled from the heat of what Shiro guesses was once a nice cup of coffee. He usually helped himself when he stopped by, the repairman; apparently Coran’s offer of hospitality was an unspoken extension attached to the future owners of the bar.

He doesn’t mind it, not really. (Okay, he minds just a little bit.)

Flipping the switch near the counter, he watches as the lights overhead flicker on, dimly lit in their amber covers. The room smells a little like salt, and Shiro wonders if the repairman had left the door open again while he helped himself to some coffee. Outside, the storm knocks at the windows, the wind lightly shaking the glass. He looks over the bill while he rubs the wrist of his prosthetic arm and notices a deduction of a few dollars under the total, with a short line of script off in the margin.

_I’m taking your coffeemaker next time, Shiro._

Shiro can’t help his snort of laughter as he carries the cup towards the back and into the kitchen.

It’s Friday. By now he would already be serving drinks and watching familiar faces flush in color as the hours ticked by. But the doctors were adamant in him reducing the strain on his arm, determined to get him to rest every now and then instead of just going and going. _A day off won’t kill him_ , they had said with tired smiles, and even now Shiro wonders if his own smile in response had looked just as lacking.

The wood creaks under his weight as he crosses the kitchen floor. The layout better suited for a restaurant than a simple bar, Shiro finds a polished spot near the dishwasher and places the cup there for tomorrow’s responsibilities. Besides the re-sealed coffee canister a few spaces over, everything looks the same from the night before - all tidy and neat. The cook might be a quiet kid but he sure knows how to clean and get the job done. No wonder Coran was so excited to hear Shiro was giving Asher a raise a few weeks back.

He still remembers the smile the kid gave him that day, too.

Shiro sighs as he leans back against the counter, ignoring how the marble edge starts to dig into the curve of his back. He can hear the rain beginning to hit the roof through the layers of the second floor, dull thuds, as the storm continues to pass overhead. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep back on the bus, especially not pressed up against the window, head partially unsupported and back stiff as a result. There’s still the lingering crick in his neck, the numbness that stops at his right shoulder and trails down his left arm. A sudden tremor of thunder echoing throughout the floor feels more like an earthquake as he presses himself further into the counter.

It takes a minute, seconds ticking by in a steady rhythm, before he decides to move. The sound of gears whirring, turning, an amazing play on make-believe - it echoes louder than the rain as he moves, walks, crosses the floor and leaves the kitchen. His heartbeat is slow, matching a tempo he demands - calmness and sensation, feeling, control: it all settles into the line of his shoulders as he walks up the stairs. They’re heavy, his footsteps, against the wooden steps. Traveling into the city for rehabilitation sessions, especially ones designed to push a little at his comfort zone, aren’t exactly ideal when he’s going on less than four hours of sleep. Coupled with the weight of a busy shift from yesterday, Shiro hopes he’ll fall asleep easy tonight and stay asleep.

He wonders if he should stay closed tomorrow. (He’s got the equivalent of a doctor’s note.)

The door to the loft opens and closes with a quiet creak. He passes by the kitchen’s archway and finds his room, a private space in a building meant for the public. It’s a little messy. The books on his desk are covered in a thin layer of dust. He adds the bag from his trip, the papers, next to the books. In the corner of his room, his basket of clothes stands neatly neglected; he needs to do laundry tomorrow. He tosses his jacket onto the pile, places his shoes neatly by the desk. The desk chair welcomes him with little protest.

“Okay, here we go,” he breathes, and finds space on the desk to rest his right arm on.

He digs his fingers around his right bicep, pressing against the metal, against the indentations along his arm. He finds the fastening protruding along the inside of his arm and takes a deep breath, waiting for the pressure to seize the prosthetic as the hatch folds open. The clock on the wall ticks and he counts to ten before placing his fingers inside the hatch, curling around and pressing against the buttons within.

Click, click. There’s a slight hiss. Gears whirl along his upper arm. The clasps unlatch as the suction gives out, gravity gives in, and he slowly slides the limb from his residual limb and onto his desk. He doesn’t look at it, what’s left, what remains from his bicep up, and not for the first time does he wonder how much money Coran had poured into his new arm. A nearby towel wipes down the skin and a compression sock waits inside his closet, hanging on a rack on the back of the door. The difference in weight on either side of his body feels weird for the first few minutes. A familiar feeling, a mocking thought. He tries to grab the sock with his right hand before he corrects himself.

Eventually, it’s tugged on, a comfortably snug fit. There’s no reason to keep the lights on anymore.

He falls back onto his bed without changing anything else. The pillows smell a little like the fabric softener he knows he’s almost out of. His toes dig into the rumpled bedsheets as he blinks and focuses his sight, tracing the lines along the door of his closet. From his place on the bed, out of the corner of his eye, Shiro can see the flash of lightning through the glass of the skylight.

Skylights. A classic Coran concept added on when he ran the bar and stayed in the loft, meant to give the upstairs a natural glow. There’s one in the next room over, placed above the kitchen table for the small plants Shiro’s been nurturing - another courtesy from Allura. They’ll need water soon.

Rolling over on his back, Shiro sinks into the sheets. Sinks, and lets himself be.

No one is here. The doors downstairs are locked, the bar’s sign flipped to closed. Any demands of him are waiting for tomorrow. There’s little reason other than habit to keep up the charade of squared shoulders, a line of tension tracing along the middle of his back to keep him upright - no, there’s no reason at all. Here, he can sink.

“I’m tired,” he says aloud. There’s no answer beyond the flash of lightning against the reflection of the skylight, the clouds sparking in color before shifting back into grey. The rain traces rivets along the glass.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

 

 

 

There’s a train that comes by several times of month, driving along the tracks outside of town. From what Coran’s told him, it’s a scenic tour - traveling through the mountains, avoiding the highway, gracing the passengers with sights of the ocean over the hills. He remembers seeing a train station a few miles east of town during one of his motorcycle rides, but he’s not sure if they’re connected.

The calendar on the wall has switched to June. The streets are getting a little crowded. It's not all that uncommon for drifters to come wandering through; in the fall, it makes up a decent chunk of his profit at the bar. Although now, in the summer, it's common but usually in the form of packed jeeps, teens and young adults laughing along to the radio as they drive along the highway. Tourists visiting the ocean. This town was usually a pitstop along the coastline, the occasional night at the inn.

He doesn’t remember a time in his few years of living here seeing such a noticeable group of train goers (and a lack of cars.) It _was_ known to happen, though, according to Coran. Bored kids, train-jumpers, the occasional thrill-seekers. The homeless, or the ones who didn’t feel up to taking the roads.

Shiro looks up as the bar door opens, the bell ringing a single time. Outside, the sun is about to set.

“Welcome. Sit wherever you’d like.”

They nod to him, the trio that looks to be in their early twenties. A woman and two men, they’re dressed in a mix of hiking boots and tank tops, sneakers and t-shirts - perfect for summer, comfortable for travel. The matching duffle bags give Shiro something to smile about as he watches them take the table near one of the front windows. His co-worker slips out from behind the bar and walks over, winning smile in place and a relaxed slope to his back. Iniel glows a little against the sunlight filtering on the glass, the shoulders of his white button-up bleeding into pure light.

The woman at the counter is tapping her fingertips against the surface, humming a tune Shiro can’t place. Her smile has wrinkles around the edges, but they’re deeper around her eyes. She’s reading a paperback with quiet intensity. A look around the room shows soft and relaxed smiles as the customers talk and drink, the atmosphere of a quiet summer evening commonplace but still comforting.

Maybe it’s that same atmosphere, the way he finds his eyes drawn to the expressions of his customers, how they’re all painted in shades of red and gold filtering through the glass windows, that makes Shiro finding himself growing more aware of how uncomfortable his shoulder feels. The customers are few and far between - it’s a little busy but nothing demanding, tame despite it being a bar. He knows it’s unwise to leave his station but Iniel’s here. Waiting for a quiet moment in between serving beer and re-filling the woman’s water, he lets out a sharp whistle and inclines his head in Iniel’s direction. Focuses his attention on him just long enough to get the unspoken message across before he walks out from behind the counter and into the kitchen.

It’s quiet in here, a little dark; the cook isn’t due to work today. Something about summer homework, family meetings, valid reasons he can’t completely remember.

His shoulder reminds him why he’s in here. He can tell through the layer of his button-up that the heating patch has worn off and already he can feel the muscles growing tense, an itch he can’t scratch. Every second he stands in silence is another second spent wishing he could do something immediate. Something helpful. When the seconds pile too high, he sighs to himself and whispers, “It’s fine.”

Shiro rotates his arm, bends it at the elbow, curls the fingers, lifts the arm up and drops it gently back down.  Repeats. Repeats. Waits a minute. Wonders if Iniel wouldn’t mind making a run into town for take-out later on during the night. Repeats the movements. Waits. Thinks about how Chinese food sounds delicious but a pizza would be easier to eat quickly - not to mention cheaper.

Light follows Iniel in as he enters the room. Shiro looks over his shoulder and finds their smile shifting from carefree to worried. He can’t hear with clarity the words being spoken out in the front room but he wonders if everything is still going well. He’s not sure why he’s wondering; perhaps the tension is playing with his worries, spiking his anxiety. Maybe the lack of sleep is getting to him.

“You okay there, boss?”

There’s a rise in his voice at the end of his question. Not strong enough to be completely demanding, but strong enough to try.

“I’m fine,” he starts to say. Slight bitterness rouses up in him at the concern in his co-worker’s eyes. Iniel’s always been a worrier even if he acts nonchalant, relaxed - it’s appreciated, even if Shiro has trouble saying so. He raises his free hand and places it over his shoulder, rolling it once. When Iniel looks at the action with too sharp a gaze, still wearing that mask of concern, Shiro finds his voice and whispers, “It’s fine. Thanks for checking on me.”

“No worries. You’ve looked tired today.” Iniel laughs. “Gotta stop all those late-night parties, Shiro.”

“I can’t help it; the nightlife calls me.”

There’s a split second where Iniel holds in a snort and Shiro wonders how deadpan he sounds. “Are you always this sarcastic?”

Clearly very deadpan. Their steps are calm as they cross the kitchen floor and Shiro finds himself wondering how Iniel got his hair into such an intricate style braid. Apparently, braids are in this year, if he had to guess. The door to the kitchen opens, Shiro following him back into the front and behind the counter.

“Jury’s out.”

“And that’s a yes.”

Shiro steps back to his original spot and checks the time above the front door. He was only gone for a few minutes. Good, good to know. The woman at the counter looks up at him and taps against the wood, asking for Shiro’s gaze. Her book is gone, most likely stuffed into her purse.

“Dear?”

He looks over and finds a small smile graced with wrinkles along the edges. He sends the old woman a smile of his own and shifts his body, giving her his almost-full attention. Her eyes are subtly skating over his features as if she’s trying to recognize why he left, trying to find a start for a conversation Shiro isn’t too sure he wants to have.

“Yes, ma’am?”

But then she asks, “What do I owe you?” and, without waiting for his reply, starts digging into her purse. Shiro leans his hip against the counter and watches, doing his best to avoid shaking his head even though a sigh of relief leaves him a little too easily. “Don’t start with me, dear - we’ve done this song and dance before.”

“You didn’t even get a sandwich this time, ma’am.”

“I know that.” She stops and looks down at the counter, right at where Shiro sees a ring of perspiration from her glass of water. He must have forgotten to give her a coaster. Then, over the lull of the other patrons in the bar, there’s a snort, her own type of laughter. “I just don’t want you to think your company isn’t worth anything.”

In the space between them is a few dollars. After a moment, Shiro reaches out and slides it off the counter into his hand. Out of the corner of his eyes, as he makes a drink, Iniel shoots her a winning smile.

“That was very poetic,” Shiro says and pretends the tightness in his throat is from a lack of thirst.

“I read more than I should,” she replies as if that explains everything and twists along the seat of the barstool with a surprising touch of grace. A smile is sent Shiro’s way on her way out, and he watches her weave through the pulled-out chairs and tables. Iniel waves as the door closes behind her, shining her in a flash of sunlight before she takes a right and is gone from sight.

His attention shifts when a nearby customer walks up, asking to pay. It’s getting close to nine o’clock.

The rest of the evening passes with little commotion.

 

 

 

“Kids, y’know?” Iniel scoffs, and Shiro finds himself smiling. They’re pushing the tables back towards the wall, stacking the chairs up. Everything behind the bar has been scrubbed cleaned and locked. The ice chest has been cleaned out, the soda pumps washed over. The bottles along the back shelf are neatly placed and recapped, glinting a little underneath the dim lights. Shiro’s checking off his mental to-do list when he hears, “They’re so… _standoff-ish._ ”

“Save it for your novels, Iniel.” He replies. He ends up laughing at the offended expression Iniel sports, even if it’s hidden behind one of the chair legs. “Besides, they couldn’t have been that young.”

“Barely legal, Shiro. The kid with the mustache could hardly hold down two cocktails, and I even made sure to lighten the booze.” He claps his hands at a job well done, dropping them to his hips. He takes a sweeping look around the room; Shiro catches a fond expression passing over his face as he faces the window. The sun is gone - now, the moonlight tints the windows a light silver. “The girl was a champ, though. I think she footed the bill, too.”

“A woman after your own heart.”

“With that undercut? Definitely.” He grins. “Too young for me, though.”

The bar is quiet, the clock over the entrance ticking away. It’s almost three in the morning.

Iniel looks tired as he unties the apron around his waist. Shiro still isn’t sure why he wears it - he told him once, but that was months and months ago, back during Iniel’s first week. He leans against the front of the counter and watches as Iniel walks around, inspecting the tables and floors, double and triple-checking like he always does. Shiro doesn’t mind, if he’s honest - it’s easy to miss a few things here and there sometimes. Iniel’s thorough.

“Did you collect your tips?”

“Oh. Right.”

Sometimes, anyway.

Shiro laughs and walks back behind the counter, listening to the sound of his shoes against the floor. Iniel crosses the floor and swivels on a barstool, resting his elbows on the countertop, chin in his hands.

“They kept complaining.”

Looking up from counting through the bills, Shiro hums. “What about? The drinks?”

“No, although a working television is still in high demand.” Iniel laughs. “No, those kids are travelers by the look of ‘em. Going by train, I guess. Apparently, there was a fourth somewhere, some guy named Keith who must’ve done a _fantastic_ job at getting on their nerves.”

The fans rotate at a slow pace, creating shadows throughout the room. One of the lights flicker overhead. If Shiro’s quiet, he can hear the gears turning in his arm as he fans the bills out on top of the counter. Iniel doesn’t make any mention if he notices it, and Shiro can’t help but be grateful.

“Must’ve been some colorful language if you’re this hung up, Iniel.”

“The very first thing I heard of this Keith was, and I quote, ‘ _Goddamn prick better not be on the next train or I’m pushin’ him off.’_ And unquote.” Shiro raises an eyebrow - especially at the lousy southern accent - and Iniel, with casual grace, just shrugs. “What can I say, I like conflict.”

Iniel takes the offered money with a grin, humming as he skims through the bills. Shiro locks up the till.

“And not gossip, right?”

Shiro watches as Iniel’s glee shifts into a sheepish look and before he knows it, Iniel’s up, twisting off the chair and waltzing over towards the door. He shoots Shiro a grin over his shoulder and yells, “Jury’s out!” before he’s gone, and Shiro can’t help the laughter that shakes his shoulders. With a sigh, he stretches out his arms until the muscles in his back pops. He needs to finishing checking everything and re-count the till before heading up to the loft and-- oh, he forgot to make Iniel take the leftover pizza.

More for him, then.

It’s almost four in the morning before the bar’s closed up, with the pizza finally put in the fridge, and he’s changed, dressed in comfortable clothes with his trademark coat. Sometimes it amazes him that his arm can fit comfortably inside the sleeve of his coat, no snags or irritating pressure where the prosthetic begins. He still isn’t sure where Allura found it, the coat – apparently a waxed cotton jacket in name, with pockets along the right breast and towards the waistline. It’s comfortable, and concealing. He knows he wears it too much. The green’s starting to fade along the collar and the edge of the sleeves.

Outside, the town is quiet. There’s a chill in the air, tasting faintly like salt. It’s not as cold as it gets in the fall but Shiro still pulls his coat closer to him, fiddling with the zipper as he takes a left and walks down the sidewalk. It catches towards the bottom then zips right up, stopping underneath his clavicle.

A few of the streetlights are off and he can’t see any lights on in any of the nearby buildings. Since the storm two weeks back, there’s barely been any clouds in the sky. Through the skylight in his loft, on those clear nights, Shiro traces the constellations he’s memorized and pretends he’ll fall asleep soon.

It’s a strange point in transition. The sky is a mix of colors, like a painter’s palette - a backdrop of a sky of endless black, alight with flashes of gold the closer it gets to the horizon. Purple skirts along the coastline with hues of red slowly bleeding through; sunrise is less than two hours away. It’s a quiet sky but he can still see the stars, flashing and flickering above without a care in the world. Ever meticulous, bright for a purpose.

A breeze slips by and plays with his tuft of white hair. There is sand shifting underneath his feet. He must’ve walked all the way down to the beach without knowing. Around him and behind, the beach houses - all the ones with pastel colors and nautical themes, standing on fragile looking posts - are blurs as he walks down the slope, mindful of the occasional rock and sand dune.

The ocean waves are calm but not entirely still, almost like they’re breathing. They’ve receded a little farther back and his shoes sink slightly into the wet sand. He can hear the faint crashing further down the shoreline where the cliffs reside. He closes his eyes and breathes in the chill, feels as it settles into his lungs. It burns a little but it wakes him up, the lethargy from a long day, a long week, slipping away piece by piece. But he’s still tired, and this place carries its comfortable silence like a lie.  Even with his eyes closed, as the minutes tick by, he’s still awake. Even worse than that is an urge for a drink – if only, he thinks, to maybe help him sleep when he gets home.

Nothing fancy. A glass of whiskey would do the trick.

He turns to his right and walks along the shoreline.

It’s Sunday. Honestly, he could keep the shop closed and reopen Monday afternoon. Iniel has never argued about the occasional day off; it wasn’t like Shiro closed shop that often. With his freelance writing projects - and his popularity if the boasting was anything to go by - Iniel seems fine with how Shiro manages the schedule. He’s never spoken up about it or complained, even when Shiro asked. Couldn’t ask for a better co-worker (and of course, he’s constantly reminded of that.)

The park will be open later today. He also needs to restock the supplies for the bar. The man at the grocery store will be happy to see him. Their so-called ‘rivalry’, even if a friendly one, was something Shiro couldn’t help but roll his eyes at. During the summer, people around here usually grilled out, having parties along the beach. Sometimes the quietness of a bar isn’t the best place to look for the start of a hangover.

_A day off won’t kill me,_ he thinks, and knows he won’t rest.

He looks up from the ground and promptly stops.

Shiro feels the bottom of his shoes sinking a little more into the ground. In front of him, a half mile away, there’s footsteps against the rocks, against the shells and sand. He watches as the person walks, stopping just in front of where the water meets the shore. The sound of a backpack hitting the dry sand muffles out the echoes of the waves, only for a split second, and they act in kind, sitting down next to their bag. The breeze rustles their hair, the lapels of what Shiro’s assuming is some sort of jean jacket— everything looks dark to him, unfocused. He spends a few seconds admiring the way the stars have settled into the stranger’s hair, and knows he needs to look away.

He needs to go home. Fatigue is settling back in, and quickly, but he can’t figure out how to move his feet forward, not completely. But he tries, and the heel of one of his boots crush a shell underneath. It sounds like a gunshot to his ears. He keeps walking and makes it a short distance up the shore.

Then he stops, and walks back down. He stands beside the stranger, a few feet apart.

Shiro knows they’ve made note of him; out of the corner of his eye, he watches as they glance up at him. Yet neither move, and no one makes a sound. Shiro times his breathing with the lull of the waves, watching the push and pull and the stars in between. The stranger settles a bit into something less guarded; one leg out, one knee up, hands in his lap. But Shiro can still see the glint of something sharp at his hip now that he’s closer, and he notices the tension along the line of their shoulders.

“This town,” he starts, and it sounds as if the words were torn from the tail-end of a laugh. But then he’s stopping almost as if he’s regretting having spoken at all. Shiro holds his breath. “It’s the first one that’s been... quiet.”

It’s a calm sound, his voice, even though it’s laced with exhaustion.

“Quiet’s an understatement,” Shiro jokes and the stranger laughs, the sound muffled by the breeze.

“Why?”

“I run the only bar in town and I’ve never had to call the cops.” _Not for the customers, anyway_ , he thinks to himself.

There’s a nonchalant hum to his right, perhaps impressed, and the smile that shows up on Shiro’s face comes a little too easily. This isn’t like a conversation at the bar. There’s no qualms about why people show up, why they stay, no tricks into making a drink that’ll distract the audience. Underneath those dim amber lights, in that closed space, safe and personal, he knows how to talk and how to act.

Underneath the stars, it’s different. (He wonders if he’s lost the ability to talk to people outside of work.)

“It’s nice out here,” the stranger says after a moment.

Shiro finds himself agreeing with a nod and sits down on the sand. His entire body shakes with relief, his muscles cracking along some of the joints. If he cares about Shiro joining him, sitting down beside him, he isn’t doing a good job at making it known. Shiro can’t help but feel thankful at that.

With a hum, curious, he takes a chance and inclines towards the stranger’s backpack. He envies the way it looks, worn and world-weary. It matches the owner. “Looks like you’ve been to a lot of places.”

He follows Shiro's eyes and let out a laugh. Weariness strains the sound and Shiro absently wonders how long it's been since this stranger has slept. He wonders if this is a trick of his mind, forcing away his own tiredness onto someone he’s never met. He wonders if it’s fate, a meeting of like-minded exhaustion.

“First time seeing the ocean.”

“Oh, really? Did it live up to your expectations?”

“It did,” and he’s smiling, just a little. “The company is a surprise, though.”

Shiro huffs. He can't blame them for that comment, although it doesn't seem to be spoken will ill intent.

“It's, uh, rare,” he starts, and raises a hand up to cup around his shoulder. Despite being June, there’s still a chill in the air, belonging to the sea before the start of dawn. He knows he's being watched so he keeps the massage short. “We usually don't see a lot of people up this late.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Unfortunately,” he replies, and leaves it at that.

He doesn’t press for information and Shiro can’t help but be grateful. For a few minutes, Shiro’s content to just watch the waves, enjoying the almost silence of the world around them. The sky is getting brighter with each passing moment, but the darkness still exists - persists, heavy against tired eyes. If he had to guess, it’s a half hour past four.

“Are you staying somewhere in town?”

The response is lightning-quick, laced with a dry wit. “Are you always this friendly?”

Shiro shrugs. “Call it a habit from work.”

There’s another laugh. Something about the sound makes Shiro think it’s not as common as it seems.

“No, I haven’t found a place.” He turns his head up to the sky and Shiro looks over, drawn by simple curiosity, before a yawn breaks his vision into blurs. The stranger yawns, too. “Didn’t know if I was going to stay or not.”

“And now?”

“Now I’ve got to see if I’ll get arrested for sleeping on the beach.”

Shiro snorts and remembers a day a year ago. A customer came in trailing sand in their shoes and a scowl etched onto their face as if they’ve never expressed any other emotion. The following rant was easily in the top three conversations he’s had at the job, and a plot inspiration for Iniel based on the short story he made Shiro read a few weeks later. “You can, depending on the situation.”

“Speaking from experience again?”

“Not my own, thankfully.”

Whether there was a reaction to that, Shiro doesn’t look over to check. The waves are stretching further up, edging closer to the indent their shoes make in the sand. There’s a popping sound, the stranger is stretching. The wind plays with the end of his coat as he raises his arms over his head.

“Sounds like you’ve had your fair share of adventure, too.”

Shiro laughs. Coran had mentioned it once, when Shiro was laying in the hospital bed, an aftermath of a tragedy and familiarity swimming in Coran’s eyes at the sight. Allura had fallen asleep, and her snoring, soft, was the only sound other than Coran’s words floating about the room. “ _Most things seem like they stop, like they’re slowing down. But the important stuff, it always seems to pass real quick-like._ ”

Unprompted, he never gave Shiro an explanation as to what he really meant. Shiro still thinks it was Coran’s way of explaining this restlessness clinging to his bones, this exhaustion that’s made a home within him ever since he was discharged. He’s not too sure why he’s thinking of it now. Maybe because his own adventures were gone so soon, and now— now always feels like it’s taking too long.

Next to him, as if a world away, the stranger reaches for their bag.

“You could call it that.” Shiro says and leans back on his hands.

It’s a jolt, the way he can feel the sand against his skin with only one hand. The muscles in his left arm constrict with the weight, twitching as his fingers scrape into the ground. The skin starts to tingle, like pins and needles.

He pauses, and then adds: “Don’t let me keep you, by the way.”

There’s no immediate answer. Shiro yawns as if to fill the silence.

After a moment, the stranger speaks. “Is there a hotel in town?”

“Yeah, on the other side of town-- on the road heading out towards the highway, I think.”

“Do you, uh, know how much they charge for a room?”

A reasonable question, considering Shiro’s assumption that he’s not made entirely of money. He takes a moment and does some math. Images of smiling ladies flash in his mind. They haven’t visited in a few weeks - with the tourists, their business always picked up around this time of year. Soon it’ll be time for the watermelon smashing contest, with more crowds strewn along the expanse of the beach. More festivals, more parties, more choices for him to decide who to donate his alcohol to.

“It’s around thirty bucks a night, I think.”

There’s a click of a tongue, irritated, in sync with a decent size wave that crashes down into the water. “Nothing cheaper?”

Shiro hates himself for smiling. “Jail, if you sleep here.”

“They’ve got beds,” he jokes, and Shiro snorts.

“Well, if you need a place for a few days, I’ve got a spare room.”

He doesn’t register what he says until a few seconds pass. He draws his hands back to his lap and settles a bit forward, pretending as if the imminent sunrise was something heavy on his mind. It’s not that uncommon an offer for him to extend, people have stayed with him before. Iniel’s slept over once after a few fights with his ex-girlfriend. Asher sometimes dozed off after a late shift, asleep at the counter with his backpack open, drooling a little onto his notebook. Allura shared a bed with him once, insistent and stubborn on him not taking the sofa out in the loft. He still remembers how little he slept that night, and the questioning look in her eyes the next morning.

(How she smiled, sadly, and asked to hold him when he woke up crying.)

The stranger is looking at him. His mouth is moving slightly but there aren’t any words. All Shiro hears is the waves. He sighs into his hand and cards it through the white of his hair.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to, uh, make you uncomfortable. Or overstep with anything, since we don’t really know each other,” his words catch in his throat, suddenly dry, and he can feel the way his hand shakes a little as it falls back into his lap. “It’s just an offer. Save you some money, I guess.”

He doesn’t comment on how he’s heard the guy’s stomach growl for the past fifteen minutes and how he’s had to stop himself from asking how long it’s been since he’s eaten. Iniel’s always called him a mother hen, variations of the nickname. On his second day of work, before the shop was open, Coran had walked in with groceries in his hand to catch Shiro giving out a free bag of chips to a kid that reminded him a little too much of himself at that age. A friendly smile and quiet eyes, a little cocky but mostly respectful.

He hasn’t seen the kid since then. He hopes they aren’t skipping meals anymore.

He comes back to find the stranger’s standing up and Shiro finds himself following without thinking. He’s looking at him and Shiro’s noticing his eyes are strange, reflecting purple in the light of dawn. He catches their gaze on his scar and by habit, he ducks his head. The skin tingles, an ache he barely remembers, and the fingers of his prosthetic curl into the palm in response, metal against metal. Shiro forces and smile and raises his head.

They shrug nonchalantly, but Shiro’s trained in this - he can recognize a sheepish look from a mile away.

“Well, uh. If it keeps me from walking across town and dropping cash for a cheap bed, then I’ll take it?”

Shiro laughs at the obvious not-question and questions why he’s accepting. But then they’re both yawning, swaying a little against the sand, and the waves cross over, settling underneath the bottoms of their boots. He diverts himself towards the road, to the buildings and streetlamps that have gone quiet, waiting for the sun to rise. In the distance, a door opens, a dog barks. Dawn settles differently along the edge of the sea and as he breathes in the salt of the air, he’s glad he doesn’t have to stay up and watch it (but he knows he will.)

“Hey, the rooms there aren’t that bad.”

“You say that, but I’m not the one offering a stranger his bed.”

Shiro blinks and worries if the heat on his face is visible as he turns and walks up the shore.

“Moot point,” he coughs out, and they’re laughing. “I’m Shiro, by the way,” he says after a moment, wondering if he sounds as embarrassed as he feels, and waits for the sound of their boots hitting wooden steps and concrete road. There’s a slight echo and he times his breathing to the beat. There’s no response and for a moment Shiro thinks they’ve stopped, or turned away and left, or he’s living through another exhaustion-induced dream that masquerades as reality.

Then he hears it, the one syllable answer: “Keith.”

He can’t help but feel amused. Sometimes the bar’s rumor-mill had its perks.

 

 

 

Keith sleeps with a knife under his pillow.

Standing underneath the archway of the kitchen, Shiro leans against the wall and looks out at the loft through the haze of steam rising from his coffee cup. Keith is curled up on the sofa with one arm underneath a pillow, the other draped along his side. A hand-knitted throw blanket is tangled at his feet. There’s a plate of stale pizza crusts on the coffee table next to an empty bottle of beer, and his bag is stuffed underneath with his jacket draped over top. He’s snoring quietly, and the sound fills every corner of the loft.

_I’m not used to this._ The thought echoes through Shiro’s head like a repetitive knock.

He doesn’t regret his offer, not entirely. And as far as he knows, Keith could wake up at any minute and gather his things, exit the loft with a “Thanks” as his goodbye and a foggy memory Shiro could easily chalk up as a vivid dream. With how little he’s slept, it wouldn’t be a surprise.

Part of him wants to talk to Keith about it. Part of him feels like Coran would’ve done the same.

He sighs around the rim of his cup and walks back to the kitchen table to take a seat. He should be sleeping now. He should’ve slept the minute they settled indoors, as soon as Keith’s head hit the pillow. Now the sky beyond the windows is a mix of colors, pinks and yellows with the occasional blur of a bird, and the trees are rustling as the breeze travels along the expanse of town.

It’s peaceful, at the very least.

He tips the mug back to find it's empty. It soon becomes his third refill. He drinks the fourth black, too lazy to spoon in the sugar and pour the milk.

Keith lets out a quiet snore in the other room and continues to sleep.

 

 

 

Shiro’s flipping through a small stack of mail when he hears the loft door open upstairs.

It’s mostly bills folded inside a sales advertisement for the grocery store in town, but there’s a letter from his mother tucked in towards the bottom. She’s still using those blue colored envelopes, the ones where she has to fold the letter into fourths just to fit it inside. The sight of it makes him smile as he traces his name in her script: slightly shaky, but beautiful to look at. He remembers the days when he was little, coming back in from a hike to find her at her desk, practicing her cursive as she wrote poems. Slipping the letting back into the stack, he tucks away the thought to call her in the back of his mind as Keith walks down the stairs.

Keith, he’s already learned, walks quietly, but the first step always creaks. The look that crosses over his face makes Shiro laugh.

“You awake?”

He gets a nod as an answer, a casual shrug that wrinkles the lapels of his coat. That knife is back on his hip, obscured just enough to not be noticed by an untrained eye. As if they’re trading, Keith looks along the length of his arm, and Shiro has a moment where he regrets not grabbing a flannel shirt or something on his way downstairs, something to go over his tank top. Even still, he tells himself that the scrutiny isn’t that unnerving - the audience of one compares little to the number of crowds the bar calls in.

But Keith doesn’t say anything. Shiro wonders if he’s being polite or if he just doesn’t care.

“Did you sleep?” Keith asks, taking a seat at one of the barstools. He looks from the empty mug of coffee to the paperback book marked with an old envelope: some type of bank statement, easily a year old.

It’s a question he didn’t expect. Shiro looks past Keith to the window panes and watches as people walk by. Maybe that’s an answer all on its own, or maybe Keith is someone used to coming up with his own conclusions, because he nods again. Shiro smiles; he probably shouldn’t leave it to chance.

“I slept enough,” he says after a moment and leaves it at that. “What about you?”

“Well, the couch made it hard to be anything but unconscious, so.”

“That’s the general consensus - but, uh, I’m glad,” and Keith’s kind of smiling, drumming his fingers along the top of the counter, and something about this feels a little too easily or maybe sleep deprivation makes you tired enough to just take things at face value. He’s surprised, though, pleasantly, at how simple this feels. “If you’re hungry, there’s some waffles and coffee upstairs.”

He doesn’t mention they’re the microwavable kind. He swears he can hear Coran’s simultaneous laughter and disappointment from the next town over.

Keith twists on the stool and stands and, before Shiro can object, takes the mug from in front of him before making his way back up the stairs. The creak of the first step gives way to silence before the loft door opens and closes with a gentle click. Shiro blinks repeatedly and wonders how stupid he looks, mouth half-open, before he shrugs and turns back to the mail.

The clock over the front door ticks, filling the bar with a pendulum-like rhythm. Sunday afternoon, a little past two - the AC cranks at maximum effort and the windows are lit up from the sun. Shiro contemplates opening the bar for a few hours when people glance longingly at the sign as they pass. It wouldn’t take long to set up and Iniel’s only a call away. Probably quite literally, if he’s out sunbathing again near the dock.

Then the loft door opens and he hears Keith curse, and he drops the idea entirely.

“You didn’t have to do—” he calls up towards the loft but his words stop when Keith descends the stairs.

He’s carrying half of the kitchen in his arms. The waffles are balanced along the bend of his arm and the thin jug of syrup hangs from his index finger, swinging as he walks. Two mugs, one Shiro’s, are pressed against his chest, cradled against his arm. The pot of coffee is trapped in a strong grip, sloshing inside the glass, almost threatening to spill. But Keith is steady, he’s careful, and all of his cargo makes it safely to the counter. A smile threatens to crack Shiro’s face and he finds that he’s fine with that.

Keith sits down and looks a cross between proud and irritated. “I, uh, couldn’t get the sugar.”

Shiro’s glad-- if Keith came down carrying the bag of sugar in his mouth, he probably would’ve lost it.

“There’s some in the staff kitchen. You need any?”

“No, I drink it black.”

“You’re braver than I am,” Shiro says and walks back into the kitchen. The sugar, neatly labeled, rests in a jar along one of the shelves. Shiro takes a second and enjoys the dim lighting in the room, allowing his eyes to rest for a second, just a moment, and a minute passes. He finds his way back into the other room, back where Keith is flipping through the newspaper with interest. The sugar jug announces itself louder than Shiro does as he sets it on the counter. “You looking for the comics? It’s in section C.”

Keith snorts and dog-ears the page, pushing the paper closer to Shiro’s side. Shiro doesn’t touch it and instead pours himself a cup of coffee, humming as the sugar begins to dissolve. The waffles sit on a plate, slightly warm from the microwave; Keith pulls silverware from one of his jacket pockets and makes himself a plate.

He doesn’t take much. Shiro cooked enough for four. He pretends it doesn’t bother him.

Keith eats in silence and Shiro enjoys his coffee as he watches more people walk by outside. Tourism, a perk of the summer season. Not that the excitement around town died during the other seasons but the ocean has a certain allure that only the summer sun seems to perfectly highlight. Or so he’s assuming, based on how the traffic doubles during the months of June and July. If asked, he’d probably say he enjoyed going to the ocean during the fall more than any other season. Cooler weather, less crowds, sunsets dyeing a world already colored in shades of orange and yellow. It’s quiet, and the waves always look beautiful in the silence.

His cup of coffee is gone. Shiro’s still tired.

“What made you stay?”

Keith doesn’t look over and instead continues to eat, shrugging as if Shiro asked him about the weather. They both know, Keith has to know that he had plenty of chances to leave: when Shiro was finally asleep, when Shiro was pacing around the kitchen making breakfast and Keith was pretending to be asleep on the couch, any moment between his arrival and now. Shiro’s hands curl, searching for his cup. He crosses his arms over his chest instead, feeling the pull of muscles along the length of his shoulders. The metal of his prosthetic reflects against the light, casting faint sunbeams towards the ceiling. The quiet, this particular kind, gnaws away at the pressure in his throat.

“Why does it sound like you’re apologizing?” Keith asks after a moment. His cup is empty now, too.

“Does it?” Shiro smiles, and it tastes bitter.

Keith huffs, his own type of laughter, and doesn’t press further.  “Well, it’s hard to resist microwave waffles,” he says after a pause and pointedly waves his fork over his empty plate. There’s a small smudge of maple syrup at the corner of his mouth. Shiro laughs and picks one of the waffles up from the stack, folding it in half before he takes a bite. Keith snorts at his face and Shiro wonders what he looks like.

“Well, as long as you’re sure,” he says in between bites and wonders what he means by that.

“It’s… appreciated,” Keith replies but this time he doesn’t wave his fork around. He meets Shiro’s eyes, purple against grey, and Shiro finds himself sending back a tired smile in exchange. As if on cue, Keith asks, “Am I keeping you up? Bars run at night, right?”

Shiro shrugs but amends himself and shakes his head. “No-- yes, they do-- I mean, don’t worry. I was just doing stuff.”

“Stuff.”

“You know - checking bills, making lists, contemplating a week of nothing but naps.”

Keith rests his cheek in his hand and spares him from what Shiro assumes would be a world-class eye-roll. He copies the position and leans against the counter, stomach pressed against the edge. Keith’s words carry themselves easily throughout the room, the backdrop of the world outside a muffled filter; it reminds him of the rain after a storm. “You lead a very exciting life, Shiro.”

“We all can’t afford the luxuries of travel like you, Keith.”

A pointed look at the bar behind him, then to Shiro’s arm. A glance at Keith’s worn jacket, and the tired look in his eyes.

(There’s a number of lies in their jokes.)

“Well, you can at least afford a nap, can’t you?”

“Good point.” He’s considering it. The numbers on the clock are nothing but blurs. Keith looks tired, as well - the few hours he slept helped ease the memory of bags under his eyes, as well as Shiro remembers them from seeing them in the dark, but a restlessness stirs there, unimpressed by the lazy Sunday so far, and Shiro feels a little guilty at living a quieter life. Keith taps his fingers along the counter.

“Nothing wrong with sleeping in.” He says, filling the silence, accidently chasing away the guilt. Shiro smiles.

“Be my guest,” he replies, and they both pause before chuckling at the pun.

Keith turns around and rests his elbows back against the counter. Based on his position, Shiro assumes he’s watching outside, watching as people in bathing suits with arms full of cargo - from beer to umbrellas, picnic baskets to chairs - walk by. It’s not as if he’d be staring at the door, no matter how much Coran was fond of the style of wood used and how proud he was for striking up such an impressive bargain for it.

“Have you checked out the town yet?”

“No, but I plan to. Later, probably.”

“What, are you meeting someone here?”

“Not really,” he says, and the tone tells Shiro that’s not the whole truth. Wouldn’t be the first time someone lied to him over drinks. The look Keith directs back at the newspaper raises more questions, but Shiro’s not up for bartending off the clock, not if Keith isn’t sharing. “What about you?”

Shiro blinks. “What about me?”

Keith turns around and sets his elbows on the bar. His hands fold together against the countertop, an almost scholarly type of posture, and Shiro’s fingers twitch on command as if he should be making a drink. A Negroni, a glass of whiskey, or maybe just a pale ale - Keith seems like a guy of simple taste.

“Won’t you have customers later?”

“Nope, just the one in front of me now,” he jokes and laughs when Keith snorts. “It’s my day off.”

“Oh,” he says, monotone, and Shiro laughs again. “Do you like it? Bartending?”

“It’s interesting,” Shiro starts, and finds himself looking down to trace the grains of wood underneath the glass cover. It’s not much of answer, not really, and even though he owes nothing in regard to giving one, he continues. “I’ve found it’s, uh, easier, I guess. People tend to talk more and ask less in this profession.”

Keith spares a glance at Shiro’s prosthetic. “And that’s good?”

“Good enough,” he says simply and watches as Keith’s eyes continue to trail along his right arm. He doesn’t make a move to hide it, actually moving it out to lay it down against the counter. Keith nods like he’s grateful but he looks away, taking in the sight of the lines of bottles along the back wall. Shiro pulls his arm back. Neither continue the conversation and the clock on the wall fills in the silence for them.

It’s cold now, the coffee in the pot, but they share the rest of it to pass the time.

 

 

 

Four o’clock in the afternoon comes quietly, almost quickly. Monday settles in along with a rush of heat that makes it all too tempting to go without a shirt for the entirety of the summer. Keith seems fine with the heat, practically undisturbed even with his jacket on, and Shiro doesn’t know whether to be happy he’s content or skeptical about his new somewhat-roommate being a heat-resistant alien.

Another question to add to the surprisingly decent-sized stockpile he’s built up within the two weeks that they’ve known each other. For some reason, it feels like it’s been months.

Shiro sips his drink and waits at the table while Keith pays for his own. Their groceries are tucked neatly underneath, the cooler with all the temperature dependent foods resting by Shiro’s feet. Burgers for the bar, more coffee for the loft, a few twenties gone from Shiro’s wallet. The liquor vendor came by earlier in the morning, greeted by Keith who spent two minutes trying to get out of signing for it while Shiro shook the last bit of sleep from his eyes and got his papers ready. Everything is ready for opening tonight. Even Iniel seems excited, although Shiro assumes that has more to do with the reveal of his sister being three months pregnant than a night sliding drinks along the counter to people with new tans and skewed smiles.

Still, waking up to that text this morning had been nice. Coran’s excitement about it was doubly infectious, but that was just like him: happy and excited about life in all its ways.

Keith slides into the chair with ease, mouth around the straw of whatever drink he got. The café is bustling, filled with chatter-like white noise. Shiro hums around his milkshake to keep from looking around the room. He’s already placed names to a group of people on the far end of the room - regulars, in their early twenties. Fond of adding stakes to their liquor. The guy with the ponytail apparently had a crush on the cook, if the notes he left with Shiro to give for his co-worker were any indication.

_Brave guy,_ Shiro thinks, and remembers how Asher had blushed that one day, stammering some fake explanation Shiro waved off when he started to get nervous about being found out he liked men. The group of regulars haven’t been in since, and he hopes that’s just a coincidence - the summer sun being too strong an attraction to hang out at the bar, something like that. _Hopefully_.

“Uh, Shiro?”

Shiro blinks; he didn’t realize he was facing Keith. Keith’s watching him with those purple eyes.

“Yeah?”

“You’re--” He catches himself on a stutter, timed with the bell above the café door ringing out. A bell pun rings in Shiro’s mouth but he bites down on his tongue, on a small smile, keeping it silent. He’s faced with a skeptical look at that, but Keith drops his expression back into neutral and continues after a moment. “You okay?”

Shiro nods. Keith accepts it. Shiro wonders what the two of them are doing here – a chaste café outing doesn’t really fit them, he thinks with a silent laugh.

“I could've paid, you know,” he says after a moment of shared silence. Keith shrugs, a movement Shiro is already becoming familiar with. It's an answer, or enough of one, even if Shiro finds himself curious about where Keith got the money. Not that he should assume, but Keith doesn’t strike him as someone who has a lot to his name, or wants it for that matter - simple, simple, when their situation shouldn’t be simple in the slightest.

“Don’t worry about it,” is the answer given, delivered on a curt tone. Shiro hums and finishes his shake.

They leave the café behind, groceries in tow. Keith swings the cooler in his left hand as they walk.

The sun is halfway set, coasting along the horizon. The heat settles underneath the collar of his button-up, uncomfortably warm, but there’s a breeze going by, gentle, rustling the paper bags, messing up Keith’s hair. A few strands slip from where Shiro’s pinned up his tuft of hair, falling over his forehead, and it tickles against his skin. Keith’s silent, looking out at the other end of the street, watching as the people walk along the sidewalk, descending towards the flatline of the beach, glimpses of lives shown between the gaps in the passing cars.

This side of town is usually livelier than where Shiro lives, bustling with shops and roads and diversions. The cliffs aren’t as prominent here and the ocean stretches out undisturbed, matching every bit the tidy look of a small west coast town. Not that he has much of a reference point aside from Coran’s stories. All kinds of people walk around them, through them. Most are dressed in t-shirts, shorts, bathing suits. One guy passes in full camouflage, carrying a surfboard in one hand and a backpack in the other, and both Shiro and Keith turn back to watch him walk by.

“Is it always this crowded?” Keith asks. Shiro strains a little to hear him over the noise.

He shakes his head and when he notices Keith isn’t looking at him, he speaks. “Not really. You kind of came into town right in the middle of tourist season.” He tosses his head, enjoying the crick in his neck loosening up at the movement. “It quiets down when fall starts.”

Keith nods, Shiro observes, and he looks like he’s contemplating something. A woman passes between them, obstructing his view with red hair and a red smile, and when he looks again Keith is back to normal, his expression a calm frown.

“Most people come here in July, uh, late summer? We have a few festivals this time of year, and it’s not as hot or crowded like the southern coast. It doesn’t last long, just a few weeks,” Shiro continues. “Coran always said it becomes something of a ghost town when the tourists leave.”

“Who?”

“Who what? Oh, who’s Coran?” Keith nods and Shiro finds himself smiling a little too easily at the question. “Sorry, I thought I told you. He’s a friend of mine. He ran the bar before I took over about five years ago, give or take, so he knows more about this town than anyone else I know.”

They round a corner and the busy crowds slowly start to thin out. The buildings trade in height, almost descending as they continue down the sidewalk. The rocky cliffs creep into view as the sidewalk begins to rise and fall, the uneven terrain an almost comfort underneath Shiro’s feet. Everything is painted in gold light and dim shadows, and the breeze is picking up - the salty taste in the air hangs heavier here, and he finds it’s easier to breath in.

Keith looks contemplative again, as if he’s tossing around a number of questions in his head. In his hand, the cooler drips a few drops of condensation with every slight swing of his arm. When he settles on a question, some sort of stuttered sigh leaves him. Shiro wonders what he decided on not asking.

“Why did you take over for him?”

But he doesn’t wonder long, and he takes a moment before replying.

“I needed work and somewhere to stay. He had somewhere else to be but didn’t want to lose the place.” He rolls his right shoulder and feels the connection of his prosthetic against his skin, the difference in weight between real and bionic. He’ll need to check his arm and adjust the connection before his shift starts tonight. Keith’s eyes naturally drift to his arm, piecing together the puzzle without a word. Shiro smiles again, and wonders if it looks as self-deprecating as he feels. “It all fell into place pretty easily when he offered me the job.”

“Oh,” Keith replies, and that one syllable carries a little too much understanding, heavy in his tone.

The breeze finishes their conversation. They let the minutes that pass talk in silence.

When the bar comes into view, tucked away in the corner with the wind playing with the swinging sign, Shiro smiles. He notices the single bay garage, a home for his waiting motorcycle. He wonders if he’ll take the time to drive out when the leaves begin to change.

They both walk up to the door, dodging a group of kids running along the sidewalk, and Keith holds one of the heavier bags as Shiro fishes out his key from his pocket. The air from the AC hits them as soon as they enter, the slight chill a contrast against the sun along the slopes of their back.

Keith sighs, pleased, and Shiro finds himself dropping his shoulders in response to the relief in the sound.

Shiro drops the bags down on the nearest table, placing them in whatever gaps he can find around the edges of the chairs. His hand curls around one of the rungs and he pulls it off, placing it on the floor. He removes another one and takes a seat, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. The sweat is cooling, a mixture of sticky warmth, and only then does he realize his hand is shaking a little.

His nails dig into the skin there, tender, before he cards it up and through his hair. Keith takes the offered seat and, after placing his bags down, digs out two bottles of water from the cooler. He offers one to Shiro and Shiro smiles, taking it with a nod of thanks. Their fingers brush at the trade and he finds himself focusing on the cold sensation of Keith’s skin.

The fans overhead start to slowly turn. Keith must’ve flipped the switch on.

“What about you?”

Keith looks surprised at the question. Shiro clears his throat and tries again.

“I mean, why, uh - why are you traveling?” He wants to tack on, _if you’re comfortable sharing_ \- some type of statement that doesn’t trap Keith into feeling obligated to answer, but he doesn’t. Curiosity settles in the pit of his stomach like spikes, and a part of him is tired of talking about himself and only himself to an almost stranger. He absently wonders if any of his patrons ever feel this way and he swallows down the thought with a gulp of water.

The water bottle in Keith’s hand is almost empty already. It sloshes around when Keith sets it down and it settles slowly, rippling slightly with every touch on the tabletop from Shiro’s idle tapping.

“About time you asked,” he offers as an answer. Cryptic, a little hesitant. His eyes flash.

Shiro chuckles. “Why’s that?”

“Don’t bartenders pry a lot? Y’know, cleaning off the counter while they ask someone about their life?”

The tapping of his fingers stops and Shiro can feel the way his lungs catches on a sharp laugh, torn from his throat that leaves him faint of breath. Keith’s looking at him like he’s caught between wondering what was wrong with the question and what’s wrong with Shiro. But that’s a question for another time as he waves his hand, pacifying Keith’s growing concern.

“That’s, haha-- Uh, no, not really. That’s kind of the novelization of the job.” Keith raises an eyebrow and Shiro smiles, mostly to himself, as he rests his chin in his hand. “Like in movies, you’ve got the stressed-out worker and some bartender with a mustache and tie, and he goes, _You look like you’ve had a long day. Why don’t you let out your troubles?_ and then they talk, but usually, well...”

He pauses and thinks back on the days, months, years he’s been here. Coran’s the guy with the mustache and tie, the one who asks troubled drinkers about their troubles while he’s pouring out their drinks. Shiro’s the one that pours drinks and counts the seconds on the clock as they pass by.

“I tend not to ask, unless it’s obvious they need a shoulder to cry on.”

Keith finishes off his bottle of water and fishes out a new one, passing a fresh one to Shiro. “Why’s that?”

“Like I said before, people talk more and ask less when they’re opposite of me at the counter. They kind of do my job for me, if I’m honest - and besides, I’m not fond of being a hypocrite.”

“So, you’re okay with asking me about my life now?”

“Last I checked, I wasn’t on the clock,” Shiro says, but he’s quick to amend himself. “It’s okay only if you want to share. You haven’t actually been forcing me to talk about my life, so don’t worry too much.”

Keith takes a breath and Shiro finds himself watching the movement in his chest, rising and falling at a slow pace. He hasn’t noticed until now but Keith’s hair is a little uneven, unkempt around the edges - the ends split a little around his neck, curling back around and upwards. He wonders if it’s natural or just from the heat, but regardless, the only thought in his mind is that it fits him. He looks good.

“I guess I’m taking a page out of my dad’s book.”

“Huh?”

“Hold on.”

When Keith stands up and crosses the floor, walking with purpose, Shiro keeps his gaze faced towards the front, opting to listen to the sound of Keith’s boots against the wooden planks. There isn’t much to do right now besides put away the groceries and rest for about an hour, wait for his co-workers to get here and start their shift. Thud, thud. Tonight shouldn’t be busy. A Monday night, an evening usually spent preparing for the week, shaking off the weekend’s relaxation and rest - hardly a time to spend drinking. A few regulars might come in, a few tourists. Thud, thud. It should be simple.

And then he’s back, Keith’s back at the table and he’s sitting, and there’s something in his hand that takes Shiro a moment to focus on. When he does, more questions pop into his head, settling on his tongue like a promise. But he waits and watches, watches as Keith takes a breath and flips through the print, fingertips a bright contrast against the stark white and grey of the paper.

The pages settle and rest against the table, faced in Shiro’s direction. The corner is dog-eared.

_Salar de Uyuni - The Land of Two Skies_ stares up at him in bold ink, with the author’s name printed below in smaller text. He vaguely recognizes the name, the pseudonym, the article itself. It’s a reprint of a travel article, a small snippet, that’s shown up before in old issues of the newspaper. Once a month, a new excerpt arrives in the mailboxes around town, a new article with a new place, new pictures with words attached that have left many of his patrons smiling during the calm hours of the evening. Several ladies come in early on those days just for extra copies of the paper and Shiro wonders if it’s some satisfaction for their wanderlust, some type of living vicariously through the words of a man not meant for a stationary life along the coast.

Keith’s waiting for him to speak. Shiro isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say.

The article stares up at him, fluttering at the edges from the caress of the fans overhead. On the front page, the lone photograph is creased, slightly smudged from a rim of condensation. His coaster for his coffee mug this morning, probably; he flips the page and finds the last paragraph. “ _There’s a reason people travel. Some people do it to feel cultured while others are simply curious. All I care about is the peace and quiet.”_

He doesn’t realize it, but he’s smiling. Looks like he’s taking a page out of his father’s book.

“Peace and quiet, huh? Sounds like you.” Witty, world-weary and maybe a little lonely - all Keith is missing is the stories in his bag and the camera hanging neatly along the slope of his neck. He can almost picture it: Keith, alone in the world, in places beautiful and challenging to get to, stealing moments for himself and writing them out only to clear them away from the page when it gets too personal. Never talking of himself but of the people, the places, the buildings and plants and culture.

Longing creeps under his skin, tickles the skin of his left palm. “ _It’s nice here, but unnaturally quiet. Like everyone is too awed to speak, even though we were here yesterday._ ” Shiro laughs to himself and closes his eyes. For a moment, a needed reprieve - if he holds his breath, he swears he can feel the wind fly by him. He misses what he once had.

Keith coughs. Shiro looks up and blinks at Keith’s sheepish expression. They’re on the ground and Shiro blinks again, closing his left hand once, twice. Keith’s eyes follow the movement before he shrugs.

“I guess so,” he says, not really responding, and Shiro bites away a laugh.

Shiro flips back to the front page and reads anew. He’s seen this particular article a few times, read a few others, but this one - which he assumes is popular given the destination - is one he never finished all the way through. Keith’s sitting there, and Shiro can’t tell if he’s waiting for a reaction or waiting for words. The decision is stolen from him, either way, and Shiro makes it to the second page when Keith speaks.

“The salt flat was really amazing.” Fondness paints Keith’s tone in a quiet manner and Shiro closes the paper, leaning back into his hand to give Keith his full attention. Keith’s cheeks color slightly but neither comment on it. “Mom kept yelling at me to stop running so much.”

“Aww. How old were you?”

“Seven, I think.” He takes a sip from his water bottle and Shiro imagines what a seven-year-old Keith would be like. “It was right after his editor finished a voting poll or something. People sent in where they wanted my dad to go to next, and that place won by a landslide.”

“Seven years old, huh?” This is familiar, questions - letting someone else dominate the conversation. Comfort settles into the ridges of Shiro’s muscles, relief along the slope of his back, and he doesn’t notice when the slight tremor of his hand stills. Animated sparks color Keith’s eyes a shade brighter; Shiro’s grin trembles at the edges. “What was it like? Do you remember anything else?”

“Uh, not much,” and then he’s pausing, smiling. “Mom was freaking out - she thought the car would fall through the ground at first. One of the only times I saw her scared.” He takes another sip of his water. A particularly loud shout comes from outside, shadows flickering through the window blinds as the person runs along past the bar. “But it was endless almost? You couldn’t really see anything but blue.”

Shiro misses that sight.

“I remember thinking that the world was too big a place.”

Shiro looks down at the picture in the paper, peering through the slightly smudged color. Blue skies blend in with the horizon of the salt flat and there’s someone standing off to the right, a woman based on the silhouette. The ground at their feet looks uneven and, as if reading his mind, Keith speaks.

“You could walk on water there.”

When he closes his eyes, color sparks. The image of a short haired Keith, shorter altogether, crosses over his mind as he runs on the ground, ripples from the water distorting the reflection of the clouds above. Everything is painted in shades of red - from the sky above to the one below, from Keith’s jacket to the strap holding his father’s camera securely around his neck. He can almost hear the splashing of the water, the laughter there as Keith ran out against the earth and probably fell, how his heart would pound at the exhilaration only to lead into a soft beat as his mother sighed, smiling in ways only a mother can.

When the scene shifts, he’s standing along the reflection, looking up from underground. Blackened skies highlight the shimmer of the stars, allowing the ice to glow. Keith is grown up and he’s alone, standing with his worn backpack and his worn blue coat, standing and staring out at the world around him. Shiro knocks against the ice. Keith looks down at the sound and even though he doesn’t see him, he smiles. Shiro opens his mouth to speak but it catches on the water, heavy and cold, and he watches with quiet horror as the ice begins to crack underneath Keith’s feet.

HIs metal fingers come up to rub at the bridge of his nose. When he opens his eyes, Keith’s wearing a faded blue jacket but there’s still a smile, curved up at the corner in a wry manner as if he knew what Shiro was thinking. Shiro shrugs as if that explains anything, as if that simple action could pacify his exaggerating mind, and Keith’s smile grows a slight fraction.

_I need some coffee right now._

“It sounds like an amazing place, Keith.”

Keith shrugs too, copying Shiro in how their shoulders raise, but his arms don’t move. They don’t raise up in tandem like Shiro’s arms do. “That’s just a small part of the story, right?”

Shiro, following Keith’s glance at the paper, nods. “Yeah, they only print half of it and include a few pictures. It’s a marketing thing, I guess, wanting people to buy the magazine your father’s stories come in.” After a moment, he adds, “I wouldn’t mind reading them in full, though. He doesn’t seem to wax poetic like some other travel blogs-- uh, writers do.”

“If my dad is poetic, then I’m a damn playwright,” he replies, and Shiro snorts. Something tells him Keith might like tragedies like Shakespeare, or Greek folklore. “He never, uh-- wait a minute, when are you supposed to open up tonight?”

“I’ve got a little over a half hour until the others get here, and then we’ll set up for the night. Why?”

“Just asking,” Keith replies. He’s looking at the newspaper again. His second water bottle is halfway finished, and water droplets are sliding down the plastic to collect against the flat of the table. Shiro tries to convince himself the change of topic doesn’t matter, so he stands and begins to grab the bags the groceries. It’s for the best, if he’s honest - he still needs to get changed for work, too.

They can talk more about it later. Hopefully.

“Well, don’t worry. Would you mind helping me with all this?”

Keith’s chair screeches a little against the wood when he scoots back, the sound replacing his silent answer as he picks up the cooler and his two assigned bags. Shiro holds the door open and when Keith passes through, stepping into the kitchen to drop his stuff onto the counter, Shiro looks back out at the main room.

The windows along the front of the bar are closed but the blinds are open, partially, letting in the golden light of the afternoon sun. His eyes fall to the sight of their chairs, still pulled out from atop the tables, askew against the curve of the table. The newspaper is still there, and Shiro can just barely see the movement of the pages from the fans overhead, the way traces of dust kick up and collect light, flickering here and there as they dance in the air. Everything looks warm, welcoming, covered in sunlight.

He looks back and Keith’s standing there, waiting but saying nothing - a picture of patience or boredom, Shiro can’t decide. But he sighs to himself, a sound light in amusement but pitched in self-annoyance, and crosses the room to stand by Keith. They sort out the groceries in silence, filtering through what goes in here, what belongs out in the main room, and what goes upstairs in the loft. Keith’s observation skills remind him of his own: a quiet, watchful gaze, lingering on the picture a moment after it settles to memorize it. The look of subdued disgust at the jar of sugar next to the coffee amuses Shiro to no end.

It takes a few minutes to restock the bar once the kitchen is done. Keith drops the cooler down near the ice chest once Shiro makes a comment that his co-worker has a certain set-up he likes and has since forbidden Shiro for messing around with too much even though _he’s_ the actual owner of the place.

Keith grins, amused, and tells him that it’s less work to do. Shiro pretends he’s allowed to be lazy.

The loft welcomes them both with a gentle rush of cool air. Keith sets his remaining bag in the kitchen and goes over to the couch, slipping off his jacket to stuff it under the coffee table, on top of his backpack. Shiro whistles while he puts away the groceries, a quiet tune that drifts in and out between the calm whirring of the AC unit. When he steps out of the kitchen, hands a little damp from watering his plants, Keith’s laying back against the couch, head tilted up towards the ceiling, eyes half-closed, breathing slow. The sunlight from the skylight paints him a shade lighter, toying with the dark color his hair. In his lap is some type of book, unopened.

It strikes Shiro as personal, belonging to a moment where he himself does not belong. With one last glance, taking note that the book is some sort of thin sketchbook, he walks to his room and stops at the door. The sound of pencil scratching atop paper is faint at its start, but it’s there.

“Have a good shower,” Keith says absently, stopping his drawing. He restarts it after a moment.

Shiro smiles and closes the door behind him, careful not to make a sound. He spends his shower thinking about the Salar de Uyuni and wondering why Keith is still here, still with him, if traveling around, if peace and quiet, is such an ardent desire. He can’t think of an answer that doesn’t confuse him.

 

 

 

“Will you marry me?”

Out of all the things Shiro expected to happen on a Friday night, this didn’t make his list.

But here he is, standing on the inside of the counter, watching as a clumsy-like gentleman stands on bended knee, looking up at his potential bride-to-be who seems to be a few seconds away from dropping her glass of scotch to the floor. The other patrons appear to be circling around the pair in their chairs, waiting in a mix of fear and excitement. Asher pops his head out from the doorway, tired eyes alight in a curious glow. Iniel waits with a suspiciously knowing smile by the front door.

Suddenly, she’s nodding, face flushed red. The man is grinning wide, laughing, shaking as the ring is slid onto her finger - from the distance between their table and the bar, Shiro can see she’s trembling, too.

When he stands, she’s drawn into his arms, her hair catching the light to flash red, and they’re turning, twirling as much as they can in the crowded space, and the cheers from the crowd drown out the sound of her shot glass shattering on the floor. Iniel slips in behind them and sweeps it up with a broom he materialized from nowhere.

The music, paused as soon as the man began to propose, resumes. Acoustic guitar tracks, with the occasional violin solo, coming from Shiro’s phone that’s hooked into the bar’s speaker system. Not as popular as his pop and jazz collection, obviously, but a well-requested playlist regardless, demanded by not only the cook but the group of regulars Shiro remembers seeing at the café earlier in the afternoon.

Behind him, at the door leading to the kitchen, Asher sends a wave to said group and the guy with the ponytail shoots him a wide grin in return. Shiro resists the urge to grin as well at the exchange but fails, smiling wider when the guy’s two friends tease him loud enough to be heard from across the room.

Shiro goes about sugaring a few rims of some cocktail glasses, smiling just a little more as one of the ladies sitting along the length of the bar asks for a little extra sugar, their attention fully on him now that the spectacle has begun to die down. The double meaning doesn’t go over his head, especially when the two other girls croon and giggle at her pleased hum, but that doesn’t mean he can’t play along, flexing the muscles along his left arm as he picks up the shaker and mixes up their drinks.

Towards the end of the counter, near the wall, the man there nudges the tip jar closer to the girls and Shiro has to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

He can smell a little of the Cointreau, a sweet orange smell, as he pours the drinks, sparing a warm smile for the ladies individually as he passes them their respective glasses. The bolder one - or so he assumes - blushes a little as she picks off the piece of orange hanging from the rim, biting into it around red lips.

“Let me know if I can get you ladies anything else, all right?”

He hears how his voice dips at the end, smooth like the drinks he just served. He watches them nod and giggle, the sound fading into the cluster of music and noise from the crowd. He sets the liquor bottles back into their space and grabs the shaker, rinsing it out in the sink and wiping along the inside with a fresh rag. Out of the corner of his eye, the ladies drop five-dollar bills into the jug and the man from before shoots him an animated grin.

Shiro walks over when he’s done cleaning and refills his shot of whiskey as a sign of thanks.

“Good job putting on a show there, kid.”

Shiro laughs. “Not much of one but as long as they’re happy, I guess it works.”

The man tips his glass back and downs the shot in one go. He hasn’t been here long, close to half an hour - something about working second shift and getting off early, a disgruntled dissatisfaction with where he works apparent in his tone. But his words are clear, his eyes focused, and he’s half-finished with his plate of fried pickle chips. Shiro pours him one more shot and slides a refill of water his way.

The man’s smile is warm, probably as warm as the taste of his whiskey. “Thanks, Shiro. Don’t work too hard, okay?”

Shiro nods and walks back to the other end, watching a small group of tourists stumble out of the bar. They showed up as soon as Shiro unlocked the door, full of nothing but strangely placed wonder for the small town they ended up visiting. He can’t blame them, not really - when he first moved out here, he was amazed at the depth of silence, how still a place could be even with people in it. Some say it’s boring, or dull. He remembers someone mentioning once that they were surprised the town had more than one stoplight.

He rubs his prosthetic over the length of his sleeve and shrugs, watching as Iniel walks back with cash in hand, fingers flicking through the bills as he counts to himself. He slips the money into the register and pockets a folded-up napkin, shooting Shiro a winning smile. Shiro elbows him but says nothing, content with watching the customers bustle about the bar.

Keith had slipped out from the loft about an hour after the bar opened. No explanation, nothing left except for a wave he tossed over his shoulder on his way out. He somehow left unnoticed, with no one, not even Shiro’s co-workers, mentioning it. He’s thankful, if he’s honest - having a stranger to everyone slipping out of his home would tie him up into the town’s gossip quicker than he can leave said town.

But it’s the third time tonight that Keith leaving has crossed Shiro’s mind. And it’s the third time he’s left since then. To a few days ago, when he talked about his father. Maybe he’s restless. Maybe he’s bored?

He passes a well-dressed woman her second beer and goes about wiping down the counter, clearing up crumbs and spills from the people before. The dampness from the towel streaks against the wooden surface, and he can smell the faint touch of cleaner clinging to the rag. He can feel Iniel looking over at him, curious, but neither try to start a conversation. Over the door, the clock’s black backdrop reflects against the gentle amber lighting. Their hands are almost at midnight.

Shiro goes about serving a sleepy-eyed group of twenty-somethings that just walked in and ignores the clock for the rest of his shift. Time passes slowly, voices a quiet buzz within the walls of the bar. Asher leaves within the next hour and the ponytail guy (who stayed when his friends left) follows him out and into town. (Shiro cheers silently at that.)

Soon it’s just Shiro and the man at the end of the bar, the man on his sixth shot of whiskey and halfway into a paperback novel Shiro’s not sure where exactly it came from. The cover is well-worn, the book well-loved. Shiro cleans the last glass as the man stands, a little shaky - “These ol’ legs aren’t so good anymore, kiddo” - and pays before leaving.

The bar, having been cleaned a little as he went along, echoes the faintest sound of the ocean waves outside. The beach is close to empty - Shiro can see a few stragglers walking along through the blinds against the window. Iniel is gone, having left early on the arm of an old friend. Some old college roommate, shockingly attractive, who apparently was in town visiting. With a pocket lousy with tips and a smile easily influencing Shiro’s own, Shiro had let him walk out into the salty air an hour before closing.

It’s three in the morning now. He’s alone. He breathes a sigh as he slumps into one of the bar stools.

The bar close to spotless, he allows the cleaning rag in his hand to slip down to the counter. Shiro presses the heel of his palm, his natural hand, against his eye, head tilted into his own touch. His shot of whiskey, untouched, ripples in its glass as he rests his elbows on the counter. Static, pins and needles - it creeps along the line of his shoulders and down to his back, centering at the base of his spin like a hollow drum beat. Even after months and months of standing for hours, he still aches; pain settling quietly like dust in the corner, unnoticed until it’s in focus.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. He knows it’s Allura. Someone knocks on the door. He doesn’t hear it.

Fingers around the shot glass, he tosses the whiskey back, humming at the burn in his throat. It’s faint, dull when he tips his head back down, but the headache he’s been ignoring since the latter half of his shift is making itself known, pulse after pulse. The doorknob jiggles, and the front door opens slowly.

“The bar’s closed for the night,” he says without turning around. He knows who it is.

The stranger makes no effort to reply and the sound of their steps against the floor is almost rhythmic. Shiro hears the waves outside as the door slowly closes back, gentle and steady. Taking a walk after finishing locking up might not be a bad idea but before he can push himself up from the bar, the stranger sits next to him in one of the stools and slides him a wrinkled paper bag.

It smells strongly of grease. Shiro’s stomach growls. Keith is looking at him underneath the quiet lights.

“I, uh, figured you could use a bite to eat.”

“That’s--” Not what he expected but he’ll take it. “Thanks, Keith.”

Shiro opens the bag and pulls out two wrapped burgers and a large box of fried onion strips. The napkins at the bottom are halfway damp from the heat inside the bag. Keith laughs like he expected it when Shiro slides him one of the burgers and places the onion rings between them. A cup of ranch dressing is pried out from the bottom of the bag, below the napkins. Shiro grabs a beer from behind the bar and passes it to Keith who accepts it without a word.

They eat quietly, the acoustic guitar music from before playing in crackled audio from Shiro’s phone.

Keith’s picking fried crumbs from the corner of his mouth when Shiro asks, “How is it outside?”

“Not too bad. There’s a breeze but it’s actually-- it’s a little humid, I guess?”

Shiro crumbles up the wrapper from his burger as he swallows his last bite, savoring the salty taste of melty cheese mixed with the grease from the onions. He knows it won’t settle well - based on the logo on the bag, he’ll probably be in the bathroom for twenty minutes right before he decides to head to bed. Keith is halfway through a sip of his beer when Shiro steps back from the stool, circling around the bar to toss out his trash. After a few moments, after he’s finally finished, Shiro takes Keith’s trash without being asked.

The whole room feels serene, still; the ocean after a storm. Shiro stares at the door, peers through the window blinds before he decides to go for it. Keith watches him with a quiet gaze.

“So,” Shiro starts, his voice a smooth drawl – _you gotta put on a show_ runs through his head like a mantra. Keith sits up a little straighter and rests his arms along the length of the bar. Grabbing the rag from before, he reaches down into the built-in cooler and grabs Keith another beer, placing it before him on one of the napkins. Pretending to wash down the bar, he starts, “Tell me about yourself, stranger.”

Shiro waits for the sound a pin dropping to hit the floor but Keith starts laughing.

(Shiro’s spent the last several hours listening to the clinking of glasses and bottles, to the laughter and curses and the voices of people whose names he halfway remembers. Hours of simple flirting and hearing coins and paper drop into the tip jar, his left hand’s fingers a little sore around the knuckles from all the handwork. Standing on five hours of sleep and being awake for almost a full day, he feels the trembling in his hand, the pounding in his head, the weight of his right arm and the knowledge that he probably shouldn’t have just ate junk food all rolling around in his mind.

But Keith’s laughing, and he’s overwhelmed with the feeling that it’ll all be okay.)

“I’m just a drifter.”

Shiro wonders if that’s another answer to his earlier question. Keith’s watching him, waiting.

“A traveler, huh? Where’d you go tonight?”

Their act now short-lived, Shiro watches as Keith props both of his elbows on the countertop, chin in hand. He watches the condensation slide down the neck of the beer bottle before watching Keith speak.

“Just around the beach, near the cliffs. Walked along the pier. Found an ice cream place.”

Shiro grins, unashamedly wide. “You didn’t _run_ into anyone, did you?”

All at once, Keith’s cheeks color, a light red dusting the skin over his nose. He immediately finds the sight of his beer bottle enrapturing, fascinating, and his hair falls over his face, hiding his expression from view. His arms are crossed over his chest. Shiro’s grin twitches at the edges as he holds in a laugh.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Against the daggers in Keith’s eyes, Shiro bends forward and laughs, his headache pulsing like warning bells when Keith buries his face in one of his hands. The embarrassed groan is answer enough, splintering at the ends as they both trail off into a fit of weak laughter.

Young couples were known to visit the cliffs outside of town, sneaking away into hidden coves to spend some, well, _quality_ time together. Often enough that, throughout the summer, some of the older residents in town teased about putting up occupied signs along the rock walls. Shiro knows those kids don’t go out there to make-out _that_ often, but the idea amuses him more than he likes to admit.

(Although he knows he’ll die happy if he’s never asked to head out there with a half-drunk _smooth talker_ from the bar again.)

Shiro coughs, fist curled against his lips, the metal a pleasant chill against his skin. Keith is looking up at him and he looks a mix of flustered and amused, eyes alight despite the half-rings that circle underneath. He tips back the remainder of his beer, the fluid movements of a now dodged conversation.

“You look tired.”

Keith slides him the empty bottle with little grace. “Pot, kettle, black.”

Shiro can’t help but laugh. The thought that Keith shouldn’t have the confidence to make such a statement since they’ve only known each other for almost three weeks doesn’t slip his mind. “You’re not wrong.”

He doesn’t feel like thinking about all the ways he’s tired. He doesn’t feel like thinking about the fact that it’s plain as day, etched onto his face, in all those cliché ways that make him want to crawl back into bed.

The music playing from Shiro’s phone stops when the playlist ends and the devices finds its happy home back in Shiro’s pocket. He sees the flashing light, the three unread texts from Allura, but they’re better left for later. It’s quiet, with the only sound the mix of Shiro and Keith’s breathing and the hum of the fans above oscillating at their slow pace. He still needs to put the remaining half of the chairs up and lock the doors, sweep the floor, check and double-check the bar and kitchen to make sure everything’s shut down for the night.

Keith stands and grabs his bag from under the stool.

“Is it,” he starts but stops, his words paused on a firm halt, and he looks a little lost.

Shiro waits.

“I can still stay here, right?”

“Of course?”

This is probably the perfect moment, right here, right now - the perfect moment to ask what type of situation this has evolved into. Keith’s fingers curl around the straps of his bookbag and Shiro notices the few stray pins tacked onto the fabric – an abstract green alien head pin, some pentagram-like symbol, a startlingly long sentence he can’t completely read with the word “change” tacked on in bold at the end. But he knows, Shiro knows as he looks at the pins, that this is probably a little strange. It’s the equivalent of bringing in a stray cat and letting it stay around after discovering it has a home in the next town over, coupled with knowing you aren’t someone who can take care of a cat, let alone yourself.

Keith doesn’t seem like he has plans to leave, to head back out and continue on his travels. At least, not yet. Shiro figures the couch should at least get some use before he goes, he doesn’t mind. He also honestly, genuinely, appreciates the company.

Maybe that’s too simple. Selfish? He’s too tired to figure it all out.

“Okay.”

Shiro watches Keith head upstairs to the loft, disappearing with a strangely soft smile that looks like it belongs on the tail-end of a question. He picks up the rag, reapplies the cleaning solution, and goes about cleaning the area where they ate. The chairs are picked up soon after. The bar is locked up, safe and secure. Keith, in the loft, is curled up on the sofa, pretending to be asleep. The patchwork blanket is twisted in bunches underneath his arms, bundled below his chest. He hasn’t taken his socks off.

Shiro falls into bed a little before five, free of his work clothes with his prosthetic taken care of the night. His hair is damp from the shower and his skin tingles from how hot he ran the water, colored a light red. His headache still lingers, a quiet knocking in the back of his mind; it matches the frequency of his phone’s notification light, a lone green dot blinking every five seconds. He presses back into his mattress and pillows and stares out past the skylight, watching the stars starting to fade as the sky gets brighter and brighter.

The sun is up before he finally drifts off to sleep.

 

 

 

“Really? You can't play any instruments?”

Around the rim of his coffee mug, Shiro grins. “Nope. Why is that shocking?”

Keith hums like that's an answer in itself. The steam from his tea clouds his expression. “Half of the people at the bar, in this town, seem to think you can do anything. It's a bit surprising when I find out I've been misled.” Oh, the steam is gone - Keith's smirk is sharp like his knife, but it ripples like the ocean; amusement paints itself uniquely on his face, but Shiro’s grown to like the contrast.

“Pardon me for disappointing you but alas, I'm not perfect. Pretty sure I'd destroy an instrument instead of actually playing one.”

The rustling of the washing machine echoes quietly throughout the loft. Most of Keith’s clothes are being tossed about in the dryer, his trademark coat a light blue blur through the door’s window. Shiro’s not used to seeing him without sleeves but it’s hardly a surprise to see he looks a bit built. If they’re quiet, over the noise of the laundry machines, he can hear cars honking outside— and there’s laughter, faint. Tourists are probably leaving from the beach houses to explore the town, another day in boring paradise.

Maybe that’s paradise to some. He probably shouldn’t judge.

“Hey, you wouldn’t be the only one. Pidge did the same thing.”

He snaps back into the conversation. “Who?” The word leaves him on a nervous pitch.

Keith raises an eyebrow, skeptical, but says nothing. He ruffles the towel on his head and lets it slip to hang around his neck. His hair is curling slightly past his ear, peeking out from the top of the towel. The stubble from before is gone, Keith’s face cleanly shaven. (He was surprised Keith grew facial hair at all.)

While he waits, Shiro takes another sip of his coffee and spoons a little more sugar into the mug.

“She’s a friend,” Keith explains simply after a minute or two has passed. “Apparently when she was little, uh, her brother tried to teach her how to play guitar but she panicked and somehow ended up snapping two of the strings.”

“Huh. Worn strings?”

“That was one of her excuses, yeah.”

“What about you?”

Keith blinks mid-sip, and shoots Shiro a curious look.

“It’d be a little hypocritical if you, Keith, are here laughing at my and your friend’s inexperience when it comes to playing an instrument, but then it turns out you’re just as bad.”

He’s trying but failing when it comes to smiling, and he looks down at his empty plate, once a home of an overcooked omelet, to distract himself. Keith snorts, dismissive of Shiro’s logic, and sets his mug down.

“I play guitar.” Pause. “A little.”

He doesn’t sound smug. (Even if there’s a little bit of pride there.)

“Just a little?”

Nostalgia brightens the purple of his eyes. Shiro finds it interesting, as a concept; Keith is someone who seems to be a bit quiet, comfortable with silence and genuine conversation, but he doesn’t quite fit the strong and silent stereotype. There’s an energy in the way he moves and speaks, an energy not exactly lost in translation but one that seems like it’d be easily missed if someone lacked the effort to look.

Keith stands and grabs their plates and his own empty mug. At the sink, placing the kitchenware down, he continues, “My dad played a lot when he was home from work. I always liked the sound so I bugged him enough until he taught me a few songs.”

“Pretty sure you weren’t bothering him.”

“You clearly didn’t know me as a kid.”

Tipping his chair back, Shiro rocks on the back legs before the jolt of falling brings him back fully to the floor. The calendar above the line of potted plants tells him it’s less than a week away from the start of July. Today’s a quiet Sunday, an early morning type of day even though the clock reminds him that it’s almost noon.

A light overcast covers the sky. The end of half a week of storms, hopefully. Although he shouldn't complain all that much; rainy nights sent people stumbling into the bars more so than breezy, peaceful evenings. Keith is looking out the window, watching something with calm intensity.

“Want to go for a walk?” Shiro asks, standing up to walk over to where Keith stood. Keith shrugs but he’s obviously mulling over the idea, fingertips tapping rhythmically over the countertop. There’s still plenty of time before Shiro has to get ready for work and he’s enjoyed showing Keith the town, watching him fawn over the ocean.

(And part of him knows somehow, understands in the smallest of ways, that Keith’s father is a subject that settles a little sorely in Keith’s mind, so he’s more than willing to help change the subject.)

“I don’t think it’ll rain today.”

Outside, a distant rumble of thunder echoes throughout the sky. Shiro’s shoulders drop.

“Or mother nature will make me look like an idiot, so never mind.”

Keith looks over his shoulder at Shiro before looking away, looking down. His shoulders shake. The kitchen is filled with the sound of his laughter. Shiro isn’t sure if it’s the deadpan tone of voice he’s adopted or whatever expression he’s currently wearing on his face but, apparently, it’s enough to make Keith laugh just a little. It’s enough to make him feel proud.

He waits and listens to the sound before he joins in. He’s sure he sounds nervous, awkward; was what he said even remotely funny? When it trails off, it’s replaced with the sound of rain hitting the roof, repetitive without rhythm but still soft. Shiro tries to focus on the sounds around him but his attention is locked on Keith.

“Give me a raincheck and we’ll see how it goes.”

Grinning, Shiro nods. Then he pauses. Watches Keith, who is currently wearing a skewed grin, step out from the kitchen. Shiro waits a moment and then turns towards Keith’s retreating figure.

“Was that a pun?”

Keith laughs. Shiro doesn’t get an answer.

 

 

 

The rain comes back.

When Shiro closes the bar for the night, surprisingly early, the drizzling pitter-patter against the rooftop is a perfect pair to the calm jazz music currently playing as he cleans up. It’s peaceful enough that he’s half-asleep, eyes drooping, as the rag in his hand creates streaks along the wooden counter. The night went well overall, with both Asher and Iniel having left with their pockets heavy with tips.

(And phone numbers, surprisingly for Asher this time around, although Shiro knows he was just being polite in taking them. Both Asher’s boyfriend’s and Iniel’s dejected faces were funny, though.)

Phone numbers. Right. He needs to let Coran know he’ll be coming back from therapy around the time the man’s set to arrive into town with Allura in tow. Two days from now. Hopefully they won’t mind the delay; if anything, it’ll give Allura time to shop to her heart’s content at the new boutique in the northern part of town. It seems to be her style: regal and sparkly, if worrying for Coran’s wallet.

The loft door opens and closes. Shiro tenses up automatically. The determined thud of Keith’s steps on the stairs makes him guess what’s on the other’s mind, and he forces his shoulders to relax and slump down on a quiet breath. The last step of the stairs creaks under Keith’s weight, like always. Constant.

The rain outside is starting to stop.

Shiro looks up from the countertop and meets a yawning Keith, and his smile stretches into a lopsided upturn at the sight of his very own green jacket draped over Keith’s arm. Something about the way Keith stands, leaning on his right foot more than his left, and how his hand scratches along his stomach over the fabric of his t-shirt, captures his attention.

(Shiro knows his habits: eyes trained for movement, distractions to latch onto, stimulation to flip the looping record of over-stimulation his mind tends to settle into. A good habit, a bad one, variables existing in the concept that not everything exists to be seen, scrutinized, and it’s not as if it truly stops him from thinking, thinking, his thoughts snowballing into sleepless nights and bags under his eyes.

Keith stands in front of him, unmoving, waiting. Shiro sighs and forces the needle from the record.)

“I’m surprised you aren’t asleep. You okay?”

The jazz flits through gently, occupying the space between them. Keith’s foot is tapping as he nods his head, on-key to the beat. He doesn’t seem to be aware of it. Shiro focuses on that sound.

“No, you’re-- it’s fine,” he explains, stammers. His voice sounds scratchy, a little hoarse like he just woke up, and Shiro’s fingers twitch against the impulse to make him a drink. Instead, he waits for Keith to continue, hoping for answers to his unasked questions. “Mind if I use that rain check?”

Rain check? Oh. From two days ago.

He hears the hesitance in Keith’s tone, and he knows Keith can tell how tired he is. The concern is touching. Maybe it’s the fact they see each other every day, sharing the same space, the same food, with conversations that pass in tempo with the ticking of the clock. Maybe that’s it, why the concern feels genuine. Maybe the reason is simpler, or more complex.

Regardless of the why, Shiro just doesn’t have the heart in him to say no right now. _A walk sounds nice._

As an answer, he catches his jacket that Keith throws to him and walks towards the door.

Keith’s steps sound behind him, a second slower, as they leave the bar behind. The sky looks the same as it did almost a month ago, the same mix of dark, gentle colors with the soft sounds of the waves as the backdrop to the sleeping world around them. Trading sand for concrete under their feet, Shiro walks with Keith by his side and doesn’t comment on how Keith’s backpack, apparently light, hangs lower down his back or how his hair, typically tousled and loose, is tied up and away from his face.

Everything smells new, fresh. The fallen rain catches starlight in a thousand reflections.

“So where are you wanting to go? There’s not much that’s open this early in the morning.”

While Keith thinks of an answer, they turn a corner and Shiro reaches up to rub along the rough skin of his chin. Another instance of a minor change, a piece of variety. He knows he needs to shave, and soon; the stubble on his face is starting to itch and no amount of flirty or genuine comments from people at the bar is enough to make him want to keep it.

“I don’t know.” Keith says, bringing Shiro back to the present. “Didn’t feel like trying to fall asleep again.”

Shiro hums. He can understand that.

“Well, we can go get something to eat.” Keith shrugs and Shiro, having ate only a short while ago, finds he shares the opinion. “The park’s open twenty-four seven now so that’s also an option.”

Keith’s steps stop. Shiro stops in turn and looks back at him. Keith’s hair is dotted with starlight and a shadow covers his face, his eyes downcast. He knows Keith’s been sleeping strangely although he hasn’t been offered a reason as to why. Their late-night conversations tend to last until early morning now, and Keith’s even helped him with closing the bar most nights. Changing weather, or the continuing seasons – maybe it’s as simple as losing sleep.  

It’s been a while since he’s taken a walk on a night like this, sleepless and quiet. About a month. (Shiro tries to pretend it doesn’t mean anything, when he thinks of how long it’s been and how long he’s known Keith. He fails.)

“I’m okay with whatever, Shiro.” Keith sends him a tired smile. “Lead the way.”

And so, he does.

Keith’s nose wrinkles up when the reach the harbor, the smell of fish and rain and salt an unpleasant mix that wouldn’t make it as a winning cocktail. The smell doesn’t bother him as much as it used to; living here for a few years must have something to do with that. Shiro lets himself look over the few docked ships, watching how the metal reflects the stars and the half-full moon. One of the sails is fluttering in the breeze, snapping back and forth in a lazy rhythm that ripples the green stripes cascading down the fabric.

He hasn’t traveled up to this part of town in a while, in a few months. His night-time walks usually don’t take him this far from the bar, and some townsfolk don’t take to kindly of people messing around near the ships. Probably because of the lack of construction, the man-made haven a collecting of docks built on rickety wooden planks and piers stacked with crates, surrounded by towering cliffs and crags. It looks nicer this way, Shiro thinks; construction sometimes adds a too-developed look, and as strange as it sounds, he likes the sparse look more when he thinks about how this town acts and exists.

This isn’t a place of amazement, of grander. It’s simple. (Sometimes so simple, it becomes stifling.)

The ocean waves brushing against the cliffs ahead trade off with the sound of their steps as Keith suddenly takes the lead, ushering them both away from the harbor and into the outskirts of town. Shiro’s thoughts echo with the crashing noises, the sound of the wind knocking around ropes and metal links. Keith’s steps are sturdy, consistent, and Shiro latches onto the noise with eager attention.

He isn’t sure how they move, the act of climbing second-nature as he travels about in a mindless haze. Keith climbs like an expert, and that’s the least surprising thing Shiro’s seen all day. The slope has been evened out from thousands of steps, a steep hill the most challenging of trials, but Shiro stills finds himself tripping up. When they make it to the top, he blinks and finds himself staring out at the ocean colored black, flashing with silver and white as the waves drift back and forth along the cliffside.

Keith’s sitting along the rocks near the edge, picking one out of his shoe. His hair tie is red, and it stands out against the dark of his hair. Shiro doesn’t hear how he’s breathing, shallow and slow, until he sits beside him and feels Keith elbowing him in his ribs, a snide remark on his tongue. Shiro flicks a rock at him and grins when he bounces off his forehead and down into the ocean below.

When his head clears, Shiro wonders why Keith needed a change of scenery.

He spends ten minutes without an answer coming to mind, ten minutes without Keith asking him a question in kind. When he looks over, looks beside himself to see Keith staring out at the ocean, eyes half-closed and mouth curved into a quiet smile, bangs drifting along the wind’s current, Shiro turns back to watching the ocean himself and wonders anew.

Maybe he doesn’t really need an answer right now. Sometimes people need quiet. They need peace.

He knows there’s been many nights where only the sights of the world around him have been able to relax his tired nerves, something the stuffy feeling of a bedroom usually elevates. He knows he’s walked with Coran on nights before a project or a presentation, expressing his nerves and feeling relief when the older man shared similar doubts. He knows he’s kept the bar open later, on some nights, serving drinks to people coming from a third shift job just to avoid going to bed.

He does his best to stay quiet. When the sun peeks along the horizon, colors seeping into the rippling waves of the water, he hopes that these moments, at the very least, are ones that are peaceful.

After a few moments, Keith dozes off. Shiro shifts closer and lets Keith’s head fall to his shoulder.

The sun begins to rise.

 

 

 

The bus isn’t crowded today. Shiro’s sitting near the front and the bus driver is singing under his breath, a southern drawl so distinctive in his deep tones. Mindlessly, as he looks out the window, Shiro taps out rhythms to songs he doesn’t know. In the seat beside him sits a plastic bag. It’s grown to be a habit now, he’s sure - to buy snacks and sodas to pile over the papers he doesn’t feel like looking over. The bag rustles in place as the bus slows to a stop.

Over his chair, the driver goes over his intercom and names the stop. Shiro stands, grabs his things, and thanks the man.

Sitting on one of the benches, arms crossed and head tipped down as if he’s asleep, Coran waits. Allura is standing near the bulletin board, reading over the map that tells her his bus is close to a half hour behind schedule. Shiro’s smile comes too easily, if a bit tired, as his boots hit the concrete. Coran’s head snaps up from his impromptu nap and he bounces up, one single fluid motion that captures Allura’s attention from her reading. As she turns, her hair flowing behind her like a moon-touched wave, she beams when she sees him.

“Shiro, there you are!” She sounds happy. He’s glad to see her again after so long.

“Hello, my boy,” Coran sounds relieved, his voice warm. He knows they’re going to have another heart-to-heart soon.

Shiro’s cheeks color a little as he waves. In his non-prosthetic hand, he carries his bag. Coran’s eyes dart to it as they meet in the middle and Shiro knows he’s trying to guess exactly what those papers will say. Instructions on basic positive thinking exercises, a medication pamphlet, a list of physical activities that won’t strain his arm. An index card scribbled with names and emails of people to contact if needed. A notice to come back in half a month’s time. It all feels a little heavy; he wonders if he’s imagining it.

Allura’s arms wind around his neck.

“Hey— easy there, Princess.”

He’s aware of how he sounds, weak of breath. Coran’s smiling, fist raised to his lips like he’s trying to not laugh, and the warmth that rests behind his eyes is enough to make Shiro’s throat tighten. Allura’s voice comes from the crook of his neck, sweet and familiar. “I believe I’m allowed this. We missed you, you know.”

“I’ve called you since the last time we saw each other, _you know_.”

Allura pulls back and her eyes flash, bright from the sunlight that shutters through the lazy drifting of the clouds. He’s never seen a blue as brilliant as hers and he’s smiling, she’s smiling before her cheeks puff out in mock anger.

“Are you just not wanting a hug?”

Shiro pauses but then tightens his arm around her waist, dipping his head down to rest his nose along the slope of her neck. She hesitates, just for a moment, but soon holds him closer. Coran’s hand comes to rest on his left shoulder, a comforting weight - he still smells of that weird aftershave, something never-changing, and yeah, yeah-- he’s missed this so much.

“Well, it _would_ be rude of me to pass the opportunity up, Princess,” he whispers against her skin.

She laughs. “Obviously.”

When they break apart, Coran ruffles Shiro’s hair and tugs him into a hug of his own. He hopes Coran doesn’t mind when his prosthetic hand comes up to bunch in the back of his loose Hawaiian shirt. In between them, the plastic bag crinkles against a soft breeze and Shiro, smiling, leans back and faces Coran’s surprisingly calm expression.

“It’s good to see you again, Shiro,” Coran says, breaking the silence first as if it’s been years.

Shiro smiles. “You too, Coran. Hope I didn’t make you guys wait too long.”

“Nonsense,” Allura quips, looking between the two of them. The wind plays with her hair as she stands up straight, hands at her side, her smile genuine - as regal as always, even if only in a simple pink dress. “We should apologize for not giving you any time after your session before coming up here.”

Coran agrees with a nod. The same thing happens every year: Coran and Allura visit during the first week of July, spending a few days (or more) with him. it’s enough of a routine where he doesn’t need advance notice, so he’s honestly not sure why they’re apologizing. As Shiro steps back and reaches to rub against his right shoulder, massaging out a slight crick, Coran’s hands carefully pry the bag from his own. Before he recognizes Allura’s sudden expression of worry, a jolt shoots up and into his shoulders, his neck; his jaw hurts from how quickly he grits his teeth. He eases through the panic with a sigh.

Coran blinks and then smiles. It’s a sad one. “Sorry about that.”

Shiro shakes his head and nods in one go. His voice lacks any strength. “It’s okay.”

They walk into town in silence, Coran is carrying everyone’s things, and everyone’s footsteps are a mismatched rhythm with the wheels of Allura’s suitcase as it rolls against the concrete. Shiro walks a short pace behind them and does his best to block out the world around him, keen on watching Coran’s expression as the town comes into view. Allura’s watching, too, smiling at the joy on his face.

Coran eventually takes the lead with conversation, talking about two upcoming students he knows. Around Keith's age, he talks about two boys - a rising superstar pilot named Lance and Hunk, his ace engineer. Shiro smiles, glad to know that Coran is still inspiring people. Still happy about helping people learn to fly.

When they make it to the bar, one unplanned trip into a general store to grab some ice cream, Shiro takes his bag and Allura’s and hands Coran the keys. A popsicle stick peeks out from underneath his mustache and Allura, having caught onto what Shiro’s planning, smiles around the last bite of her ice cream cone.

“Got your hands full, Number One?”

“Nope. But this is your place, so you can open it.”

Coran laughs, short-lived but loud, and takes the keys. Shiro wonders if Keith is still asleep or if he’s wandering around the loft, since the key turns with no resistance; he doesn’t miss the look Coran shoots him over his shoulder. The AC is on and they all sigh as it hits them. Allura removes her cropped jean jacket and hangs it over her arm. Coran hands Shiro his own suitcase, a small duffle bag, along with the keys and steps off towards the bar, peeking and poking around at every little thing with the excitement of a child.

“If you missed it that much, you can run the bar for the next few days.”

“Already planned on it, my boy,” Coran replies and cracks his knuckles. He looks right at home, although Shiro’s tempted to run upstairs and get one of his old button-ups and a bowtie to complete that classic Coran’s look. “I always enjoyed the summer rush, never a dull night.”

Allura laughs. Shiro raises an eyebrow at that and shoots her an amused grin.

“If that’s the case, I’m pretty sure you took all the excitement with you when you left, Coran.”

Coran fiddles with his mustache and has the gall to not look surprised in the least.

Shiro watches as Allura heads towards the stairs and he walks ahead of her, shrugging sheepishly at the look she sends his way. At the loft door, unlocked, Shiro pokes his head through and is met with silence.

Allura is standing behind him and Coran behind her, both of them clearly curious at Shiro’s behavior. He smiles and shrugs, pushing the door forward and stepping into the loft to hold the door open for them both. Coran’s gaze instantly follows the line of the ceiling up to the skylights and he smiles, proud, hands on hips, watching the clouds drift by through the glass. Shiro smiles at how relaxed Coran looks before he watches him head back downstairs, going back for all their things.

Allura steps into the kitchen, smiling here and there at a few pictures on the wall, but a full-fledged grin blooms on her face at the sight of the plants in the kitchen quietly thriving.

“You’ve done well, Shiro.”

Following her to the kitchen, he leans against the archway, the plastic bag hanging from his wrist. “I try.”

The unsaid _‘thank you’_ drifts between them, their own little secret. Shiro looks around the kitchen and notices the two pans from earlier, both left untouched since morning. Keith had made pancakes and eggs, a surprise since it was a) unprompted and b) done after Keith had confessed that he didn’t really have any talent in the way of cooking. Shiro still isn’t sure if it was due to the kindness of a surprise when Keith knew he’d be having a rough day today or the fact that he skipped dinner last night and was more than a little hungry, but the food had been amazing.

On the counter, near the fridge, is a note. It’s in Allura’s hands now.

Shiro isn’t nervous. He’s not too sure how he feels right now.

“Oh? Who’s Keith?”

“That’s the kid who Shiro is letting stay here, remember?” Coran pipes up from in the other room. He walks into the kitchen seconds later, standing beside Shiro underneath the entrance.

“He's not a kid, Coran.”

Allura nods, recollection clear on her face, and flips the note in her hands before walking up and handing it to Shiro who, after a moment of hesitation, takes it in his prosthetic hand.

_Going out for a walk. Getting milk too. I used up the last of it. Sorry._

Shiro laughs and pockets the note. Allura’s watching him with an expression he doesn’t want to name.

Coran smiles. “How has it been, having someone else around?” It’s phrased carefully, completely set to allow Shiro a chance at honest words. Not that he’s prone to sharing lies but Coran knows, knows more than anyone, that sharing is something that sometimes comes a little easier if not bluntly pushed.

“It’s,” Shiro stops, and he thinks. It’s been a little over a month since he met Keith on the beach, a little over a month since he’s slept alone in his home, cooked for more than one person outside of work, and procrastinated in getting his laundry done. Keith’s quiet, witty, and a touch angry - not with him but his patience runs a little short (although something tells him he hasn’t truly witnessed a meltdown from Keith, and part of him doesn’t want Keith going through that just for him to witness a new side of him.) But he’s someone who doesn’t take up much space, who draws surprisingly well based on the few pictures Shiro’s been allowed to see, who doesn’t care much for small talk but enjoys talking when the conversation means something.

He can still remember his old life, the one before Keith. Nothing much has changed besides another voice within the walls, another person to share the shower with and the kitchen. And while he’d be a little lonely if - _when_ \- Keith left, it wouldn’t be the end of the world or anything.

Coran’s looking at him, an eyebrow raised with a curious look in his eyes.

Shiro smiles. “It’s nice having someone around.”

_Someone similar, someone familiar,_ he thinks, but he stops that train of thought from leaving the station.

“That’s all that matters,” Coran says in time with Allura’s “Can we meet him?”

He pretends to think about it for a minute and lets the ticking clock fill in the silence between them. Coran’s grinning by the half-minute mark and Allura looks unimpressed. Eventually he gives in and sighs, acting as if a burden has been placed on his shoulders. “Well, I suppose. I don’t see why not.”

“ _Well_ , considering we’re staying here for a few days, we’ll run into him eventually.”

Shiro isn’t too sure what’ll happen when Keith comes back. He knows of Allura and Coran - with how much Shiro’s shared about the bar, Keith knows a decent bit of Coran’s history with the place and a little of Allura by association. When he mentioned they would be arriving in town, Keith acted like it wasn’t a big deal and simply moved the conversation onto dinner choices after asking why they were visiting. But now he’s not sure if Keith will leave due to the extra noise or where he’ll sleep, considering Shiro’s slip-of-the-mind at the fact that the loft only has one bedroom: his own. Oh, and the couch, when pulled out, fits two and three would be more than just a tight fit for more than one night. Wait, no, one of the springs is messed up, they can’t pull the couch out. And there’s no way anyone is taking the floor - that’s just asking for sore muscles in the morning.

Coran’s hand taps his shoulder. “You’re thinking too much, my boy. Whatever it is, it’ll work out.”

He knows that Coran isn’t aware of what he’s thinking about, but the sentiment reassures him just the same. Allura’s gone, exploring around the loft before she settles on the couch, looking through her bag with lazy interest. Coran is sitting at the table and the expression that crosses over his face tells Shiro that he’d like for the other to join him.

Shiro sits. He places his plastic bag on the table. Coran sighs, but the sad sound doesn’t travel far.

“Can I ask— how was it really been?”

Shiro finds himself focusing on the wrinkles alongside and underneath Coran’s eyes, how he looks tired, more so than usual. More than he remembers. He knows Coran’s been working hard between military commissions and helping out Allura with her late father’s business, and he knows that Allura’s been making sure he’s taking time to rest whenever possible. Still, he looks tired. Shiro wonders how much of it is worry.

All he can get out is: “I’m fine.”

“Don’t do that, Shiro. Please.” (Of course, Coran makes it sound easy.) “I know it's hard to talk about, especially with Allura nearby, but--”

He can feel the fingers on his left hand beginning to twitch. He wishes he had something to drink.

“I’m making progress,” he says, interrupting Coran, and wonders if four hours of sleep is considered progress. He wonders what he’s done differently since the last time they’ve met that would cause pride to cross Coran’s features. He wonders and wonders but can’t place why they’re suddenly having this conversation. “Work helps with keeping busy, and with the-- If this is about going back to therapy, I’m already--”

“Shiro.”

Coran’s pointed expression does little to soothe his nerves but it shuts him up quick. Shiro watches as he reaches up and pinches one of the ends of his mustache, twisting it before dropping his arms on the table. The contents of Shiro’s bag shift from the movement, jostled - the soda in the can makes a faint sloshing sound Shiro repeats over and over in his head. But then Coran’s standing, walking over to Shiro’s side of the table. A warm hand rests on his shoulder, a solid contrast to the soft, gentle-like look resting in his eyes.

“You still aren’t sleeping right.”

Shiro feels like he’s swallowing a stone.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

He finds enough air in his lungs to let out a raspy laugh. “I did think that you had more tact.”

Coran’s bold enough to look proud at Shiro’s comment. He takes a new seat next to Shiro and pokes at the bag, a childish movement that ruins the serious expression he’s grown prone to wearing. Without asking, without words, Shiro understands what he’s getting at; with a thankful nod, Coran peers in the plastic bag and reaches down to grab the folder of papers.

It hits the table with a heavy thud.

Coran takes a few minutes to flip through and skim over the papers, the files, humming here and nodding to himself there. Shiro stands and gets a glass of water, downing it in one go to rinse, repeat - he’s on his third by the time Coran’s turning in his chair to look over at Shiro. Through the window, the skylights, the heat of summer prickles warmth along the back of his neck.

At least, that’s what he’s telling himself. “What is it, Coran?”

“Are you still on your medication?”

He’s not sure how Coran makes it sound not at all judgmental but he appreciates it, that and the warm smile Coran sends his way when he hesitates. Shiro rubs the metal of his wrist until Coran’s eyes fall on the movement. Beyond the archway of the kitchen, he sees Allura watching him, too. She looks exhausted; there should be a blanket over the back of the couch for her to use. He wants to get it for her.

“We talked about changing to a different one since the old one wasn’t… working out.”

Humming, Coran seems surprised; he probably hasn’t made to that page yet. His mouth draws into a line and Shiro tries not to laugh at the sight of his upper lip disappearing underneath his mustache. Looking down to the papers, Shiro remembers back to the session today. His therapist had started their talk with a scowl on her face, worry-lines so clearly drawn on her face as she frowned over notes from their previous session. He ended up leaving the office with a new prescription, a pamphlet on what it entails, the same list of activities to try, and a wish from her that he’ll get some full rest soon.

He doesn’t care for medicine. Not completely. And he knows Coran trusts him when it comes to taking care of himself (for the most part.) But the hope in her eyes, and in Coran’s, has him a little hopeful, too.

“Is your next appointment in a month, like usual?”

“Yeah,” he says. “She wants me to log how I’m taking it. How I’m feeling when I take it, what I’m doing, if it’s during or after an-- uh, well, it’s a work in progress right now.”

“Well, we’re all one of that. You don’t have to feel alone.”

Shiro forces himself to laugh. Coran smiles and there’s several questions there, lingering behind his eyes, swimming like afterthoughts. Instead of speaking, he stands and steps up to Shiro’s side, once again resting his hand on Shiro’s shoulder. The jolt of contact comes even though he expected it, saw it happen, but he does his best to keep his body from reacting noticeably. With a smile, a touch unnerved, he watches as Coran looks at him.

“You deserve to treat yourself better than how you’re doing, Shiro,” Coran says, his words echoing in the space between Shiro’s ears. He isn’t sure how long Coran’s waited to say something like that but judging by the sigh that leaves his lips, the way his shoulders sag with relief, it must have been before they met him at the bus station.

He wonders what else Coran wants to say. Maybe he’s worried he’s not integrating himself into society as much anymore. Or perhaps the irregular, fitful bouts of sleep he manages to get are honestly next to nothing when it comes to healing his body after the long shifts of work. If he’s eating well, laughing normally, enjoying what he’s been given - there’s a lot more to talk about.

The papers on the table say as much.

But instead, Shiro leans into the hug Coran offers and decides that it can wait a little longer.

“I know.”

 

 

 

Allura’s voice wakes him up. It slips into his mind like an echo, shaking him from the start of a dream.

His eyes open, vision unfocused. He sees a pink blur bound towards the direction of the loft door, clearly excited. It contrasts with Coran’s disapproved sigh and oh, he’s understanding it all now. Sitting up in the recliner, the one in the corner of the loft, he blinks the sleep from his eyes and watches as Allura walks towards Keith.

Keith, who is currently standing near the door looking like he’s torn between fighting or flying. He’s carrying a paper sack in his hands. He looks over to Shiro in the chair, who only waves sleepily in reply.

“You’re Keith, correct?”

“I, uh…”

Allura’s laughing. Shiro watches as Coran steps forward and takes the bag from Keith.

“Sorry for startling you,” Coran apologies, stepping back from Keith’s personal space. Keith’s shoulders drop, but Shiro can still see the current of tension along the bends and lines of his body, the way he carries his posture, how his back is still pressed towards the door. Keith’s eyes look to him as Coran speaks. “It’s good to finally meet you, Keith!”

Keith doesn’t look away from him. Shiro kicks the leg rest down into the recliner and sits up.

“At least let him come in before you play twenty questions. C’mon, you guys.”

Coran and Allura back away, the former slipping into the kitchen to put away whatever groceries Keith picked up while he was out. Keith nods like he’s understanding something and walks to stand near the edge the couch, one hand curled tightly along one of the straps of his backpack. Allura follows him and takes a seat on the end, looking up at Keith.

Shiro’s never seen the definition of uncomfortable manifest into a person before.

“…Allura, right?”

But he can’t help but smile. Allura’s smiling, too, even if she looks a little uncertain.

“Yes, I’m a friend of Shiro’s,” she states. Shiro snorts and it draws twin looks of confusion from them both, but he waves it off. They’re speaking, clipped conversation where Coran fills in the lapses of silence, and he leans back, back into the cushions. Friend seems to be an understatement.

He still remembers the look on her face when he woke up in that hospital bed years ago. How Coran’s hand was white and slightly trembling from the grip she had on him. The way she smiled when he woke up, as if she wasn’t even worried, acting as such even though the tears in her eyes were threatening to overpour. The many nights where he stayed with her and Coran after the surgery, before the talk of getting a new arm, nights spent sleeping in an unfamiliar bed only to wake with her laying there beside him, his nose against her collarbone, her hands in his hair. The panic laced throughout every nerve that dulled when she said, they said, that he’d be okay in time.

Friend. Family.

He falls back into the conversation, right in the middle of Keith’s hesitant question. “--place was yours, right?”

Coran’s hands snap up the collar of his Hawaiian shirt. Pride draws itself so neatly on his expression, and he’s grinning, but Allura looks seconds away from rolling her eyes (even if fondly.) Keith takes a seat a good space away from Allura and looks between the two, hands in his lap, grip still loose on one of the straps of his bag. It rests against the floor unopened.

“It still is! This little building’s been everything from a bar to a bunkhouse. My grandfather built it when he was first starting out, building his name along with his, well, buildings,” Coran explains, and his eyes look up to the rafters. Keith and Allura follow his gaze but learn nothing, but Shiro’s smiling. Waiting. “His initial are engraved in one of the rafters up there - a calling card of his, if you will.”

“So, he passed it onto you?” Keith asks.

“Yes, but just the building. While I’m fond of building things myself, I admit I’ve never had his knack for architecture.”

Allura’s smiling now, too. Shiro’s drifting in and out of sleep. It’s blurry, but he thinks he can see the clock in the kitchen. The small hand looks like it’s pointing towards the three. He can’t see much else but Keith’s looking over at him, watching him - it’s the last thing he sees before he closes his eyes. He’s not sure why it’s easy right now, easy to close his eyes and drift off.

“It’s four o’clock, Shiro,” he hears Keith say and it’s amusing, if he’s honest - that Keith knows him well enough to know he worries if he’s running behind, if he’s slacking off on nights the bar is meant to be open. But the way he says it, the way he tells Shiro the time, how he sounds as if he wants Shiro to know it’s okay to fall a little behind schedule.

His voice is calming, Shiro thinks.

“Get some rest, Shiro, I’ll take the bar for tonight,” Coran adds as if reading his thoughts, a talent that wouldn’t surprise him if it turns out to be true. He sounds confident about stepping behind the bar, and a little fond. Shiro will have to watch him do his bar tricks before they leave.

Something is placed over him, contact mindful of touching his arms, both real and man-made. It’s warm and smooth, and he tugs it completely onto him before he settles back completely, head lolling off to the side. He can feel Allura’s hand brushing the tuft of hair from his forehead, away from his eyes.

His heartbeat thuds in his ears, slow and steady. He falls asleep to the sound of conversation.

 

 

 

The echoes of cheering snap him from a dream-filled sleep and Keith, sitting on the floor next to the recliner, jolts as Shiro stumbles and staggers up onto his feet. Sweat pools on the back of his neck and his hair is sticking to his skin, white strands almost invisible against the backdrop of his drained complexion. His legs don’t feel strong enough to hold him up - the right one is asleep, static coiling throughout his muscles, and the left is bent at an awkward angle to avoid falling into the coffee table.

Another round of cheers. He can hear Coran’s laughing from all the way downstairs.

“It’s almost midnight,” comes Keith’s voice, quiet but powerful; it drowns out all other noise.

Shiro turns and looks down at him. After a long pause, he can hear how he’s breathing, ragged and deep, his heart racing in his chest. Keith is scrambling up, standing, arms halfway raised like he’s prepared to reach out and settle him. His sketchbook is open on the ground, pencil askew on top of the pages. Shiro counts his heartbeats and wonders how Keith makes looking concerned a comforting sight.

Of course, he’s telling him the time. Shiro does everything he can to resist looking at the clock.

“You’re--” he starts, stop, painfully aware at how his voice sounds. Low and husky, meant for the late-night hours when everything is supposed to be quiet, intimate. Not when it’s just as late but instead he’s breathing like he just ran a marathon. “Keith?”

Keith is watching him, waiting, and Shiro focuses on the sounds, trying to keep his thoughts away from how dark the loft feels right now. How the dim starlight from the skylights do little to light up the room, joined only by the soft light from the lamp next to the recliner, right where Keith was sitting. Coran must be downstairs serving drinks and smiles to an _especially_ loud group of patrons and, as he keeps Keith’s name paused between them, he can hear singing. Slightly off-key, loud, happy singing.

“Oh god, Allura must have rigged up the karaoke machine again.”

Then he hears laughter, hopelessly stifled, from Keith. Oops, he must have said that out loud.

“Guess I wasn’t supposed to help her with that then, huh?”

Shiro walks on shaky legs to the kitchen. His hands are trembling and everything either feels damp with sweat or heavy like lead, and as he flicks the switch on in the kitchen, sliding it to a dim setting, a blossoming headache begins to form at the back of his skull. His arm aches where the metal meets flesh, and it feels agitated. He wonders if he clawed at the base of his prosthetic in his dreams again.

“You’ve unleashed a beast,” he says, sporting a weak attempt at a grin.

Said beastmaster waltzes up to the sink and makes Shiro a drink, pointedly looking at the kitchen table in spared glances until Shiro gets the hint and sits down, sinking into the chair with a sigh. A glass of water is placed in front of him, Keith crossing his arms across his chest and leaning against the table as Shiro watches Keith watching him drink. The water’s cold and he coughs when he’s done, clearing out the strain in his throat. His head pulses in time with the beats of the music reverberating through the walls.

“Maybe, but now you’ve got a good chance of getting someone you don’t like acting like an idiot on video.”

Shiro snorts, eyes closed as he takes another sip; when did Keith refill his drink?

“Remind me to never sing around you then, if that’s the case.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I like you.”

“The video part is what I’m worried about.”

Keith tsks, snapping his fingers for effect, but it’s lost when he smirks. He takes a seat near Shiro, eyes darting from the neutral color of the walls around them to the glimpses of the night through the partially covered windows. He tips his head back towards the skylight and Shiro follows, squinting against the glare from the light overhead. He can see the stars, just barely, through the glass, and his breath catches in his throat.

He wants to go outside, but he isn’t sure why. All he knows is he wants to see the sky.

“You talk in your sleep.”

Shiro looks back and finds Keith staring at him, eyes piercing in a way that makes him falter in replying. Intense, sharp in a way that some would call brash, perhaps cold. But the way Keith watches him makes Shiro feel important, important in the way that he knows, has learned, that this is just how Keith cares, how he shows concern. Concern, worry - a list of emotions painted in those purple hues that flash behind his searching look.

He sets his cup down and finds his gaze falling to his left hand. Keith follows the look and Shiro pretends he didn’t hear what Keith said, pretends that he didn’t sleep in a room where he was vulnerable, defenseless, in a room with too much he couldn’t control. His right hand coils into a fist and the remaining water in his glass ripples at the movement.

“Can you-- do you want to tell me what happened?”

It’s a vague question, but straight to the point. Just like Keith. But Shiro knows. He’s asking a question that gives Shiro plenty of options to dodge it, if he wants to. It’s not that he’s been hiding it, not exactly. But people rarely ask. Unlike now, with Keith next to him, braver than most.

He’s asking a question Shiro prays he’s ready to answer.

“It’s not exactly something you tell at parties.”

That’s said more to himself than to Keith but Keith shrugs like it didn’t matter who Shiro was speaking to. As if on cue, a loud cheer comes from downstairs; a faint bass beat echoes through the floor. He finishes off his water and watches as Keith stands and makes his way to the sink, dropping the glass down with a short-lived, hollow thud. When he turns back, Shiro sees his eyes are downcast, a contained storm brewing in the way his clenched fists turn white around the knuckles.

He doesn’t understand. As he walks back, Shiro stands and lets his hand rest on Keith’s shoulder. “Keith?”

“We can always leave the party, right?”

Maybe? Sure? Maybe it’s just a Keith thing to say things that half make sense. Maybe he’s just tired. But Shiro laughs, laughs like he understands, and follows Keith to the couch. In sync, they fall against the cushions, Keith on Shiro’s right and Shiro on Keith’s left. The light left on in the kitchen toys with the shadows at their feet. Keith sighs. Shiro raises his left arm to look at his hand.

The scars that run along the back of his three middle fingers, just a bit above the knuckles, run jagged. He remembers the blood that didn’t wash out from his skin for days or the angry fear in Allura’s eyes when he screamed at her, screamed at her when she said he’d probably need stitches.

He remembers the anger in Coran’s eyes, unfiltered, void of the jovial energy he usually carried, as he came in afterwards, after Shiro was lying in bed and staring at his bandaged hand like he couldn’t believe what happened. He remembers the guilt in Coran’s eyes when Shiro decided staying quiet was better than explaining what happened.

Flickers of his dream flash in front of his eyes. The coffee table looks like a hospital bed. Everything smells like sterilization and unscented bedsheets. Nurses are surrounding him, panicking, adjusting the half-pulled IVs in his arm, fixing the stream of lidocaine that’s dripping down the thin tube and into his veins. He stands at the door leading into his room and watches as the nurses sedate him, as his body, thrashing, begins to settle and then still. The EKG begins to sound off at a safer rhythm. In the chair in the corner of the room, Coran and his mother share a pained look as she begins to sob.

It’s his turn to sigh.

He’s not sure if he wants to do this.

“You know how I lost my arm, right?” He asks, figuring that would be the best place to start. Keith shakes his head. Oh, right - Shiro hasn’t really explained the story behind that one. He shifts back against the cushions and tips his head up, eyes locked on the main room’s line of skylights. Next to him, Keith is looking up at the sky as well, watching as a few stray clouds pass over and obscure the cluster of stars from view.

Shiro’s body feels heavier all of the sudden. The stars flash at him from behind the glass.

“I’m… I’m not sure how much Coran told you while I was asleep, but I used to be a pilot.” He’s aware of how monotone he sounds, void of any descriptive language, but Keith’s looking at him regardless. He can see him from the corner of his eye and he pretends he’s not a little flustered at the intensity of Keith’s gaze. “I helped Coran out a lot.”

“He said he built things, right?”

Shiro nods. “Yeah, he’s a mechanic, basically. Was, still is. He built a lot of new technological add-ons for fighter crafts and cargo planes. He’d ask me to test them out sometimes when I had the time to help.”

He still remembers the addition they were testing that day. He remembers the cocktail of excitement and concern Coran had at the concept of testing a cloaking device for a fighter jet. Science fiction, ridiculous, bullshit - he remembers a lot of the insults many had tossed Coran’s way as if he hadn’t proven himself capable of going beyond expectations. He remembers the pride in Coran’s eyes when he strapped himself into the jet and they went over the procedure before their scheduled launch. The look of the onlookers, the encouragement from Coran and his team, the man in the other plane that took off after him to verify whether the radar detection component was a success or failure.

He remembers Coran screaming in his communicator when the plane began to nosedive.

“Well, this--” he continues, waving his right arm for emphasis. “--was from one such time. He got a big commission from a trades-- uh, a transportation agency. Really demanding, to the point where Coran and his team barely slept working. But Coran pushed through and they did it, and he asked if me and another pilot could test out the cloaking device he made.”

Keith whistles beside him. Shiro laughs.

“I know, right? A cloaking device, of all things.” He shakes his head. “But he did it, and it worked. It worked a little too well, honestly - I remember how freaked out the other guy sounded through the comms. I didn’t even register on anything he sent out.”

Shiro closes his eyes; despite the memory, a smile comes easily on his lips. Keith hums, impressed.

_You’re, S-Shiro-- you’re a fucking ghost. I-- I can’t even see you._

It’s funny now, the irony of how true that statement could have been.

“We decided to test it out in the desert. Someplace quiet, secluded. Nothing there to get messed up in case of something going wrong, right?” Shiro lets out a bitter laugh. Keith nods slowly, looking uncertain about how to go along with Shiro’s reaction.

Shiro looks at his hand, his irrelevant left one. The scars look like they’re mocking him.

“Turns out something did go wrong.”

Weeks after the crash, Coran stormed into his hospital room with a face redder than his hair, profanities heavy on his tongue as he explained that someone sabotaged the device after it was integrated into the plane’s mechanical wiring. The anger at the concept of a massive court trial, of someone’s betrayal, of the audacity that someone would risk lives due to jealousy. The guilt in his eyes when he looked at what was left of Shiro’s arm.

“I ended up crashing.”

Keith doesn’t ask any questions. He looks a little surprised at the concept of Shiro failing and the sentiment is flattering, if Shiro’s honest. His eyes dart from Shiro’s face to his arm, as if piecing it all together like an unfinished puzzle. Shiro sends him a smile, a tired one, but he knows it’s genuine, feels the way his mouth stretches into something real when Keith’s expression crosses into something a little like grief.

Keith’s hand reaches out and rests on Shiro’s shoulder, heavy like a weight.

He bites his tongue and resists every impulse in him to shove the hand off. Keith’s hand is warm.

“The device malfunctioned and caused a complication with the controls. I couldn’t even eject from the cockpit. There wasn’t much I could do but wait. And watch,” He sighs. Keith’s hand slips away. “The next thing I know, I’m waking up in some hospital and where my arm was--” He raises the arm in question again, as if there was any doubt what exactly he was referring to. He lets it flop back lifelessly onto the cushions. “It was gone, nothing left. Next to nothing, I guess, below the upper arm.”

He wishes he had a glass of water with him. He can hear how his voice stutters and shakes, depressingly complacent in tone. He wonders when the music downstairs stopped. There’s still laughter, a dull clamor of drinks clinking and Coran’s hearty cheers, but it’s subdued, subtle - as if the world has bled away and left only him and Keith on the sofa. Him and Keith, with Keith watching him with an expression both new and so, so familiar to him.

Strangely, _thankfully_ , it’s not pity.

“I lost my arm.”

He knows that this is the first time he’s ever said those four words. Not that he’s ever really had to. Anyone with sight would be able to tell. Saying it aloud, recognizing it in the way his voice rings in his own ears, how Keith looks away for a moment to compose his expression - it brings to him a moment of realization, and it causes a strain in his throat, a burning in his nose and behind his eyes. He coughs.

“I-- I didn’t know how to deal with it at first. Had a lot of messed up dreams about it. I still do.” He pauses and looks down at his lap, at the creases his jeans create along the length of his thighs. His left hand is shaking as he wiggles his fingers into a hole along the surface of the fabric, drawing Keith’s attention.

“Earlier, was that--” It’s unfinished, Keith’s words, but Shiro knows it’s not really a question.

“Yeah. It was. When I was in the hospital.”

He hates himself for his honesty. How open he’s being. Hates how simple it sounds to his own ears, how childish - the unsaid explanation of ‘panic attack’ rolls around in his mouth and leaves a bitter taste on his tongue. Right now, it feels like his lungs are stapled to the back of his chest. He counts to himself for a moment and relearns how to breathe, and he looks back to Keith.

Keith catches his gaze and nods. The notion comforts Shiro in the fact that he knows Keith’s listening.

“What happened?” _If you want to share,_ goes unsaid. Shiro laughs at the irony.

“I punched the bathroom mirror in my hospital room.” He says, settling on simple. Keith blinks.

_A nightmare caused a panic attack and I ran into the bathroom. And I kept punching and punching the mirror until I fell over, kept punching until Allura came in and found me. And then I screamed at her._

A pause, a beat. His hand twitches. “It’s all I remember from that first week.”

He knows that’s too simple of an explanation, bordering on the line of cliché, but it seems to satisfy Keith, so he lets it go. He looks back at his left hand, raising it up to their line of sight. Somehow the scaring stopped before the pinky finger, and only faint, thin lines existed on the skin above the lower bends of his fingers. Some days it aches when he makes too tight a fist, or when he’s writing something out with his left hand whenever the prosthetic isn’t attached. Keith’s tracing the lines and bends of his fingers with his own, the rough edge and slight discoloration of the skin, but their hands don’t touch.

Shiro drops his hand. He yawns. A look at a nearby clock shows it’s almost one in the morning.

“I messed up.”

Keith sits back, hands in his lap. He’s wearing a pensive look and Shiro thinks that it makes him look mature, a little handsome. His words float in between them, eager to pull along the continuation of the conversation, but neither take the bait. He’s not sure what else he should say. He’s not sure what he wants Keith to say in return.

_You did your best. Coran isn’t mad at you. You aren’t acting like yourself. You’re still alive, aren’t you?_

He’s heard it all before. Phrases that still sound like blame. Quiet comforts that stay above the surface.

He waits for Keith to speak. But he’s met with silence.

“Keith?”

Deep down, he knows he shouldn’t break it. He knows what Keith is doing without being told. He appreciates what Keith is doing and he forces himself to shut up and appreciate it, listening to the way Keith breathes, how his chest rises and falls, the sounds almost like a breeze. If he closes his eyes, he pictures himself outside, standing along the shore, tasting salt and existing in silence.

Just existing. It sounds nice.

But Shiro looks down at his hands and sighs. Vivid, flashing behind his eyelids, he remembers.

He remembers the sight of Coran running up to the wreckage, yanking debris away and barking warnings at the commissioners who told him to wait until the ambulance arrives. How his co-pilot stood idly by, shock-still and trembling, seconds away from throwing up onto the dirt until he finally did. He remembers Coran reaching in through the glass, bleeding, and grabbing his hand, his mangled up right hand that decided to stick out from underneath the wreckage. He remembers Coran grabbing it, squeezing it, and he remembers his memory fading into white at the sight of Coran’s blood mixing with his own against his skin.

There was too much red. He couldn’t find it on his skin when he woke up days later, at least not in a way that he could wash off. He remembers screaming the first time someone tried to grab his hand. That poor nurse; of course it had been her first day on the job. He hopes he got the address right when he sent flowers.

He shakes the thoughts from his head.

Keith chuckles suddenly, like he’s amused by something. Shiro wonders if he’s done something right.

Allura walks through the loft door and smiles sleepily at them. Her crop jacket is back on and her hair is a little mussed, an obvious declaration of the fun she’s had tonight. With the door open, Shiro can hear Coran talking, his hushed tone soothing to Shiro’s nerves. Keith is looking at Allura as she walks in, watching her, but he makes no move to leave Shiro’s side. Shiro waves; he doesn’t trust his voice.

“You’re up late. Were we too loud?”

Well, looks like he’ll have to try. “Obviously.”

She grins. “Oh, well.”

He watches her walk over and sit against the arm of the sofa, leaning against the back. Her arm drapes along the top and Shiro shivers at the feeling of her fingers brushing along the nape of his neck. She looks tired but content, her small smile causing his shoulders to drop into a relaxed slope.

“How’s Coran?” he asks, and Keith perks up, looking over at Allura to watch the start of their conversation. Allura looks between the two of them, curling a loose lock of hair behind her ear. Shiro wonders why it looks so wavy but it’s a good look for her, giving her a calming charm in contrast of her usual elegant demeanor. “He get any phone numbers again?”

“Surprisingly, two - and one from a man who didn’t even order a drink.” She shakes her head. “He’s having fun and I’m glad, although I worry it’ll be a challenge to actually pry him from the bar tonight.”

“You’ve done it before; he doesn’t listen to me, remember?”

Her nails scratch against his scalp, a short-lived pain that causes Shiro to sit up in a rush, side-eyeing her with a fake scowl. She grins and slides down into the cushions, sending Keith a smile over Shiro’s shoulder before turning back to the conversation.

“That’s because he’s glad you actually sleep when you aren’t running the bar, Shiro.”

He doesn’t respond. She looks at him like she expected that.

Keith stands and walks over to the recliner, picking up his sketchbook from where he left it before. Shiro watches him and it dawns on him: Keith never left. He could’ve taken the couch or sat at the kitchen table, or he could’ve followed Coran and Allura down and stayed there after he helped with the karaoke machine. But he stayed and shared his company, even while Shiro slept.

“Shiro?”

Allura’s voice, albeit warm, shakes him from his thoughts with little tact.

“Yeah?”

“Is it okay if I take the couch?”

He nods before he finds himself looking back to Keith, about to apologize for giving up Keith’s bed, but Keith’s shrugging already as if he wasn’t even surprised. Allura’s hums, pleased, and Shiro stands, rolling his shoulders and feeling the way his muscles crack against the strain.

“You okay sleeping in my room, Keith? I figured I’d give Coran the recliner, so,” he trails off, uncertain of how to explain himself further. Allura’s looking between them, looking pleased with herself for reasons Shiro’s too tired to place and oh, yeah - he is tired, fatigue settling fully into the bends of his joints, heavy in his arms, forcing a yawn from him that he hides by ducking his head into his shoulder.

Keith is looking at him. And then Shiro watches him grin, sharp, before it’s gone.

“Woo, pillow fight,” he replies, deadpan. Shiro watches as he walks past and heads into the bedroom.

“As if you could beat me,” he calls back, and scowls when he’s met with a flippant middle fingered salute. Allura’s giggling, the sound as tired as he feels, and he sends a smile her way. “You still want the one blanket?”

“If you’d be so kind.” And then she’s gone, slipping into the bathroom next to his room. He watches her go until a loud crash shocks him from watching the way her hair bounces down her back, and he’s looking towards the loft door with wide eyes. Allura peeks her head out from the bathroom door. Keith steps out of Shiro’s bedroom.

“What happened?”

Coran’s voice comes up from the floor. “No more quiznaking karaoke nights, Allura!”

Keith blinks. “Uh, what did he just say?”

Allura’s laughter echoes throughout the loft, ever proud. Shiro can’t help but go along, spurred by the look that crosses Keith’s face when he’s left in the dark again. Allura slides back into the bathroom and Keith, shock-still until he finally shakes his head, mumbling something about foreign languages, and leaves Shiro to move about the loft, intent on setting up the couch and recliner.

When he steps into his room, Keith is sitting on the edge of the bed, flipping his knife in his hands.

“What the hell does ‘quiznaking’ mean?”

Shiro snorts and sits next to him, kicking away a stray shirt into the laundry basket in the corner. “Ask Coran, I can’t tell the story as good as he can.” At Keith’s glare, Shiro raises his hands in front of him and stands up, walking over to his closet. On reflex, he wraps his hand around the base of his prosthetic and right when his nails scrape over the fastening sticking out from the hatch, he freezes. Through the wall, the toilet in the bathroom flushes and the door opens. Allura’s humming. Shiro can feel eyes locked on his back. His hand begins to fall from his arm to rest at his hip.

Keith makes a pointed choice to cough as loudly as he can.

“Bathroom,” he says, and leaves. Shiro doesn’t watch him go as he thanks him under his breath. Looking around the room, Shiro notices he took his bag with him. He hears the bathroom sink running.

Sighing, he goes about changing into a pair of loose sweatpants and a tank top he pulled from his laundry basket before setting up his arm for the night. He was right, apparently - the skin just above the metal, past the scarring, is red and bothered; nail marks stare back at him in the closet door mirror, slight bruising from what looks to be a thumb print. He doesn’t know whether to be grateful that Keith let him sleep through that but it explains why he was bold enough to ask about his arm in the first place.

He’s not too sure what he would do in Keith’s situation, if he’d still be here and not on the next train out of town.

Grabbing a wrinkled pajama shirt, he slides it over his shoulder and lets the sleeve dangle down. He knows he’s not supposed to sleep with his arm on, knows and understands considering the discomfort in doing the opposite, but the fact that he’s letting someone besides Coran and his doctors see him like this makes him feel light-headed enough to want to vomit.

_Speak of the devil_ , he thinks as there’s a knock on the door. Slipping away from his thoughts as he slides on his compression sock, knowing he’ll need it tonight with the heat and for the irritated skin from before, he calls out for Keith to open the door.

He hopes Keith can’t tell how uncomfortable he sounds. But it’s a short-lived thought as Keith slides in. He’s changed too, almost matching Shiro’s own look sans the long-sleeved shirt. His hair is tied back into a ponytail. No one speaks for a full minute; Shiro turns his body away, a bit to the side, and looks around his room. Keith copies him after he drops his backpack near the door.

“Sorry,” they say at the same time. Shiro laughs to cover up the start of Keith’s awkward apology.

He’s trying not to think about it. Any of it, all of it.

 

 

 

Shiro learns that Keith burrows under the blankets when he sleeps.

Shiro’s facing him now, having turned around to his left side sometime in his sleep. Through the bedroom door, he can hear someone rustling about; Coran must be done from closing the bar for the night. He’s tempted to go out and talk with him, ask how the night when, but he’s tired of talking. He’s talked too much tonight.

It’s dark. Clouds drift through the glass of the skylight. Every few minutes, a sliver of moonlight slips through and highlights Keith’s hair that pokes out from over the top of the blanket. Shiro’s sleeve is twisted, stuck underneath his side. The sound of Keith’s breathing is slow, a little uneven, the only noise existing in this moment. Coran’s finally quiet in the other room, the entire loft is quiet.

Shiro’s thinking, thinking, his thoughts racing. He wants to go outside and take a walk even though it’s probably four in the morning. He wants to leave this room and forget he ever talked about his arm, about anything. He wants to sleep, wants to burrow into his pillow that smells like fabric softener and close his eyes. Keith’s sleeping. And after a moment, he begins to snore. A hitching sound, one that settles over on even breaths. It’s a quiet sound.

Shiro falls asleep to that sound.

 

 

 

Coran’s tossing pancakes into the air, the smell of butter and maple a sweet mix drifting throughout the kitchen. Allura is sitting by the kitchen table sipping coffee, her hair twisted into a loose bun. Stray ringlets frame her face. With a grin, knowing he’s far too fond of the two of them, Shiro watches from underneath the entryway as Coran slides around the kitchen in his socks.

“Auditioning for an ice skating career?”

Without missing a beat, Coran says, “I don’t see why not! I’m quite graceful for my age-- Allura, stop laughing, I’m serious! Why, back in my day, I used to--” And then he’s cutting himself off, scrambling back to the stove and shoving the spatula underneath the currently burning pancake, waving his hand over his pan to whisk away some of the dim smoke. Shiro’s grinning as he rubs the towel down from his hair to wrap it around his neck. The clock overhead ticks past the eight o’clock mark. He didn’t sleep long.

None of them did, now that he thinks about it.

“You’re a paragon of elegance, Coran.”

“I’m honored you believe in me, Number One.”

He walks up to the stove and looks down at the splotches of pancake batter spotting the countertop, at the plate with a decent sized stack currently steaming through the thin towel placed over the top. Coran’s got a smudge of flour on his cheek, around the underside of his eye.

“Why are you both up so early, anyway?”

From her place at the table, Allura speaks up. “We both knew you’d be the first one up, so we--”

“We figured you’d enjoy some home-made breakfast, made by yours truly!” Coran finishes, shooting her a look that Shiro doesn’t feel up to interrogating them about. (Even still, he can hear the care in their words.) As he makes himself some coffee, looking around for the sugar, Coran continues, “Is Keith still asleep?”

Shiro nods around the rim of his mug.

“Did anything--?” It’s strange to see Coran hesitant, faltering in his words. He knows it happens when he feels unsure, but the contrast between now and the usual confident, jovial Coran-- it’s jarring to know he’s sometimes the cause of that. Of this. “Are you okay?”

“A little sore, but fine otherwise.”

At the table, Allura coughs. Shiro shoots her a teasing look - even if he's flustered himself because _oh_ , he’s realizing how that sounds now. She lobs a rolled-up napkin in his direction before she ducks her head back down to whatever she’s reading. He dodges with a slight sidestep.

Coran, looking at the display, rolls his eyes. “While I wouldn’t object to you settling down with someone, I’m glad to hear there wasn’t any complications.”

“Don’t worry,” Keith says, announcing himself in the doorway. Shiro looks over and notices two things: the way Keith’s hair lays a bit flat, mussed, on the right side of his face, curling slightly just underneath his ear, and that he’s a bit flushed, matching both himself and Allura in a way that tells Shiro that Keith probably didn’t walk in at the start of the conversation. “I’m armed if anything happens.”

Spoken like a fact, confident, but it falls from a deadpan tone. Coran and Allura look alarmed, looking from one another to Keith to Keith’s belt where his knife rests on his hip. Shiro hides his laughter behind the top of his coffee mug, light-headed from the smell of sugar and hazelnut creamer. When Keith looks to him, equal parts tired and confused since it’s obvious no one slept eight hours and it’s too early to honestly exist, Shiro just sends him a sleepy grin.

“Want some coffee?”

“Please.”

Coran serves up the plates of food as Keith fills up a chipped yellow mug to near capacity. Shiro watches as Keith settles beside him, copying him by leaning against the counter with his hip, and he takes a second to question when his life became a domestic sitcom starring the stressed out ex-pilot, a seemingly aimless wanderer with a quiet soul, the wise and well-meaning older gentleman who has the energy of a twenty-year-old, and a brilliant aspiring diplomatic ambassador with the mental strength to keep up with it all.

Okay. So, a future as a screenwriter is more than likely out of the question.

He’s halfway into imaging a scene, one where he’s on the pier at dusk, with the words _You’re better than a life of just actively wasting away_ hanging in the air like a salty breeze, and there’s Allura standing beside him like she’s beginning to question her voice. And Keith’s walking up from behind, steps slow, and Shiro’s watching the cluster of clouds on the horizon because it’s easier to pretend he’s not a part of this conversation if his attention is lost on the sky and not the way Keith’s boots sound when hitting against the wooden planks of the pier. He halfway lost inside his own mind when he hears, “You okay?”

Keith’s hand is on his shoulder before it slips away, back to hang at his side. The mug in his own hand feels dangerously close to falling to the floor.

“Looks like we lost you for a second there,” Coran calls. He’s back at the stove, flipping pancakes. Allura’s reading again, smiling to herself. Shiro wonders if the book is more comedic or emotional but soon decides that it doesn’t matter. Between Coran whistling and Allura’s relaxed expression, he’s just glad they’re giving themselves time to rest from their hectic schedules.

Keith’s voice echoes in his mind, _Pot, kettle, black_.  

“I’m fine. Not awake yet, I guess,” he explains simply, rubbing the back of his neck with his prosthetic hand. The metal is cool, comfortable, a contrast to the searching gaze Keith is side-eying him with. He walks to the kitchen table, nudging out a chair for Keith to slide into. Placing the plate of flapjacks on the table, Coran ruffles his hair, fingers catching on the white tuft. Shiro knows he’s tired. He knows when he realizes how easily he’s melting into the touch.

“Well, stop daydreaming for a bit and eat,” and then Coran’s skating along the tile floor, being watched by Keith who looks one part amused and another part tempted to try and join in. But when Coran turns around, balancing the carton of orange juice and the syrup in his hands, Keith’s turning away, fiddling with the plates and silverware.

Laughing, Shiro smiles and thanks Keith when he hands him a plate.

 

 

 

The fans are still overhead, the switch turned down. The bar door is open, allowing a cool breeze to flow in alongside the noises of the town at noon: bustling people, cheers and calls, the occasional honk from a bicycle, the perfect cocktail of wind and waves bouncing off one another. Shiro’s thinking back to the text his co-worker sent earlier, saying he couldn’t work tonight due his old college roommate showing back up in town. Shiro knows it hasn’t been that long since they met up but he can’t fault Iniel, not really; Coran and Allura are only planning on staying for four more days. They’ve only been in town for three days but it’s felt like minutes, hours. While the mundane drags on, drifting like still waves, the important and the meaningful, their company-- it’s like Coran always says, gone faster before one can blink.

But, _of course_ , the karaoke contest last night went on forever.

(He’s still mad Allura made him participate in it. He’s mad Keith wasn’t forced into it, too.)

Still, it’s been nice, having more noise sounding throughout the loft. Familiar noise, voices, familiarity in the simplest and finest of ways. From Coran’s jokes to Allura’s thoughtful conversations, their smiles and the feeling of found family that settles in Shiro’s chest like a comfort. The way he’s adjusted to sharing a bed with Keith, sharing warmth and starlight when they’re trying to fall asleep at night, drifting off to the sounds of Coran’s echoing snores and Shiro’s tired breathing after a long night’s work.

Four more days, and they’ll be gone, back to their city several towns over. Allura with her diplomatic studies and Coran with his now somewhat relaxed, but still equally important as in the past, military commissions. And who knows how long Keith plans on staying here, in this town, with him.

He doesn’t really want to think about it. He tries not to think about it. But he still does.

In his chair, leaning on one of the bar tables, Shiro looks up to where Keith’s standing on a stool, standing near the broken television set that’s cater-cornered on the wall. It’s been about ten minutes or so since Keith’s climbed up there, his determination to fix the wiring born from Coran’s offhanded joke that Shiro probably shouldn’t be the one to fix it due to his arm. A joke that, along with being subpar compared to Coran’s usual material, caused Keith to shrug and say, “If it keeps me from freeloading,” and Shiro wonders if Keith feels bad about not having much to do besides wander around.

Maybe he should feel flattered. Keith caring about the place despite only being here for a month and a half, caring about it and making himself comfortable - or as much as he’s shown - is a nice thought.

He shrugs to himself, leaving that train of thought for another time. Keith’s watching him.

“Am I doing this right?”

“You’re doing better than I ever did.”

Keith nods like he’s agreeing, causing Shiro to snort in faux offense. He’s gone back to fiddling with the new wires, hooking them into their assigned spots. Shiro watches the way his muscles move through the fabric of his t-shirt as his arms move and stretch. The television screen flickers briefly.

“Do that again,” he orders. Keith’s nodding again and then there’s a curse, a short line of curses tumbling from his mouth, and Shiro can hear the way the stool creaks under Keith’s weight as he stands on his tiptoes to reach back towards the wall. It takes a second but then the television flickers again and stays, showing a screen dimly lit by the sunlight coming in from the windows. Keith’s waving his right hand in the air, a hiss slipping through his teeth. Shiro looks at the screen, then to Keith, and grins.

Shiro pats Keith’s foot and gets his attention. “Thanks,” he says simply. He’s learned that simple is enough with Keith.

Keith gives him a thumb’s up in reply and bends down, resting one hand on Shiro’s shoulder as leverage when he hops off from the stool. Settling on his feet, he brushes off the stool’s seat and brings it back towards the others along the wall. Outside, someone passes by and they’re snorting, laughing. It’s followed by a loud joke, one that he himself doesn’t get but one that leaves a smile on Keith’s face as he walks back towards the table.

Taking a seat, Shiro waits until Keith settles down before sliding him a can of soda.

“A new article of your father’s came in today.”

Keith almost spits out his soda. Shiro smothers a laugh behind a wobbly grin.

“We get them once a month, remember? Or,” he trails off, accidently letting the last syllable carry on for a few seconds. “Maybe I didn’t tell you that, sorry. Uh, anyway… I managed to save a copy for you. If you want it,” he explains.

His metal fingers fiddle with the tab of his soda can. The condensation catches on the light, and Shiro looks out towards the open door. He can see the ocean from here, peeks of blue in between the blurs of passing people. Maybe they should join Coran and Allura and go swimming soon, when they’re done shopping. Keith had seemed excited about it before Coran mentioned the television.

“Yeah, I-- yeah. Please.”

Standing from his chair, Shiro paces back to behind the bar, squatting down to view the lower shelves underneath the countertop before he finds the newspaper in question. He’s looking down at the paper as he stands up and turns to move from around the bar, reading over the title with absent interest.

Keith’s standing at the entrance of the bar, waiting, unseen. Shiro jumps back with a start.

Glaring at Keith’s smug smile, he says, “Here.” Keith’s smile grows as he takes the paper before Shiro can throw it at him.

Shiro stays behind the bar, fiddling with some of the bottles along the wall, straightening up the few that are turned askew from Coran reading over them earlier in the morning. Sitting on one of the barstools, Keith flips through the paper, intently sipping on his drink in the process. Amused, Shiro grins and keeps his thoughts to himself.

“What does it say?” He asks after a moment.

“You didn’t read it first?”

Shiro shrugs as an answer. Keith blinks and continues to read.

Then, “Dad went back.”

His voice doesn’t shake, instead it’s steady and Shiro finds himself admiring the way Keith carries himself, how three words easily spoken can grasp his attention in a chokehold but Keith’s expression is almost empty, carefully constructed. He’s vulnerable, but he isn’t. Shiro breathes out sound in his place.

He doesn’t know much aside from speculating about Keith’s life, nothing besides the few articles of his father’s work that he's read and the rare times when Keith brings it up as a conversation. Everything soon falls still. The world outside the bar seems to settle and stop, and Shiro watches as Keith’s eyes dart along the page. He drinks from his soda can, using the taste of the bubbles on his tongue as something to focus on while he waits for Keith to finish.

“He went back home,” Shiro eventually asks, speaking as if his works are meant to be a statement.

Keith spares him a glance and nods quickly, but keeps reading, eventually getting to the last line before he flips through the newspaper as if he’s stalling, holding off the moment where he’ll have to speak. Shiro wishes he knew where they sold the stories in full and not just the half-baked summaries. But the thought is quick to push itself away when Keith pushes the paper towards Shiro, letting him read over it without saying anything.

Bluebonnet fields. That's the picture that graces the cover in pale colors, the purples and blue of the flowers a diluted pastel in print. He's seen this same field before, in the first article he ever read of Keith's father's.

He remembers visiting Coran during the first year of running the bar, asking to stay with him and Allura for some holiday week, and Coran had a stack of old newspapers he wanted to go through for mentions of Allura’s father. He can't remember why, probably for Allura’s benefit. But he remembers waking up that first night, cold sweat stuck to his skin and his heart in his throat. How his left hand reached out for the paper if only to forget the sound of a failing engine and Coran’s screaming.

He remembers seeing this field of flowers, dimly colored on aged, crinkled paper. The first article was fond, written with care, obvious affection - happier memories of happier times, if Shiro assumes. When he looks at the paper in front of him now, he’s almost certain his guess is right.

_It’s been years since I’ve been here. The only thing that’s the same is the view._

Shiro isn’t a writer. Besides what school and the military has demanded of him throughout the years, he’s never really bothered to pick up a pen or get on a computer and just write. Unlike his mother’s gifted mind for poetry, even if the occasional speech comes out as poetic or inspirational, he’s certain that talent passed over him in the gene pool. Labor, working through his hands - he’s better at that.

But these words, these two sentences; he isn’t a writer but he knows what Keith’s father is trying to say.

He had left the hospital in Allura’s company while Coran went out to get the car. With the right sleeve of his shirt pinned up just underneath his bicep, and bandages, gauze, stitches tapping his body together, he knew he’d lost his old normalcy. Even when Allura tossed him a pinched smile over her shoulder, even when Coran tugged him into a hug and offered to close the door for him, he knew. His old normalcy was left and traded for papers about prosthetics, traded for the way his commanders wore genuine upset when they explained his career had little promise at that time ( _and probably for good_ , but that didn’t need to be said. Common courtesy isn’t subtle right after a tragedy.)

They were all the same. Coran and Allura, with their smiles and comfort, were the same: still his family, still two individuals who have homes in his heart. His mother, and their old home when he finally went to visit, was the same. The wooden floors, the smell of her perfume, the wrinkles along her eyes that peek out from the hair that frames her face - same, same, all the same. But her eyes when on him, the conversations both shared and avoided, the fact that he is someone forever changed and, by association, so is she - change loomed over their heads like a storm cloud, swirling, threatening to downpour at moment’s notice.

_The only thing that’s the same is the view._

He wonders who or what is forced to change first: the world, or the people in it. And Keith is watching him. Keith, who Shiro knows was left to change on his own, that the ones who left were the people around him. Keith, a (former) wanderer, who has never really had time for things to stay the same.

He’s watching him, and Shiro takes a minute and wonders how Keith sees him.

“I think he wrote about this place before.”

Keith doesn’t seem surprised but his shoulders square up, and the way he sits in the chair reminds Shiro of someone trapping themselves in a corner. Shiro pushes the paper away, watching as it bumps into his half-empty soda can; he’ll read it over later, when his mind isn’t set on running away with his attention.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen this place before, in an older article of his. Coran had a copy,” Shiro explains. Keith’s beginning to relax and Shiro debates on looking away, breaking eye contact if only to give him a minute to collect himself. But it’s grounding, to look Keith in the eyes when they talk – when the conversation they’re beginning to breech is suspended between them, waiting for movement. “It’s been a few years, but I’m pretty sure this is the same.”

The snap and hiss of him opening his can of soda sounds off in between them, loud like a gunshot.

“He wrote about how it made you and your mother happy, going there.”

Shiro lets Keith sit with the words while he finds his own, finds random words on the article in front of him if only to distract himself. To stop from overstepping, from overwhelming the person across from him. Speaking of personal matters have never been easy; for Keith, he can only guess he’s similar.

“It was her favorite place.” Keith begins. “She liked the flowers, the only kind she ever cared about.”

Shiro holds his breath. Keith’s looking at the table. Shiro looks down and traces the shadow that’s cast along the wooden grains and lines, looks and waits and listens.

“It made her happy to be there, so Dad-- he liked it, too. We all did.” Fondness touches his tone. Shiro watches as Keith fiddles with the tab of his soda can. The fidgeting is strange - he’s used to Keith with his arms crossed, expression neutral. The grief here now, Shiro finds, is obviously a familiar expression for Keith, with how easily he’s wears it. He doesn’t like that fact. “After she died, he decided to travel more to stay busy. He was gone a lot. And when he’d plan on coming home for a few days, he always went to that field first.”

Shiro nods. He knows people tend to go back to the beginning of an end. Human nature. Closure.

“I don’t blame him.”

A world of meaning in four words, Keith finishes with a half-finished sigh. Shiro doesn’t knows how he finds his own words, but the question leaves him before he can second-guess himself.

“You loved her, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, and Shiro believes him. “Yeah.”

Keith crushes his can in his hand and places the ruined metal on the table. Shiro taps his foot against the floor and picks at the paper in between them, flipping it over to the next page. He looks over at the words, black on faded white, and finds a string of them that makes him pause. The words at the very end, the last sentences.

_The only thing that’s the same is the view. But at least I still remember why this view is important._

Looking up from that passage, he thinks. He can only imagine what kind of life Keith’s family had before his mother passed. Maybe like him and his own mother: loving, if a little unfamiliar with how to act towards one another sometimes. Stern, devoted –  a quiet, calming love that doesn’t demand much. He can’t garner much but he hopes he’s reading between the lines correctly, that he’s seeing the fond memories peeking out from in between a stoic man’s nature documentation and cultural interviews.

Shiro flips the pages closed and stands, and he sends a text to Coran to meet them at the beach.

This story is Keith’s to tell. Whatever’s left and whenever he is ready, it is Keith’s choice.

In the corner of the bar, the television screen flickers off.

 

 

 

Shiro walks down to the bar when he hears the last customer leaving. Coran’s behind the bar, wiping it down, whistling a cheery tune as he works. Shiro stops at the last step and smiles at the sight, grateful both for Coran’s offer to work for a few days and pleased that working is something that makes him this happy. The last step under his feet creaks, like usual, and Coran looks up, smiling a fraction wider when he meets Shiro’s eyes.

“I thought you were asleep, my boy.”

“Guess I’m just used to staying awake.”

He crosses the floor and settles into the stool on the very end. Coran slides him some water and Shiro watches as it ripples in the glass. He’s whistling again and Shiro, as he sips at his drink, focuses solely on that sound. In the loft, he can hear someone walking around. Probably Allura, if he had to take a guess – Keith had seemed to be in a surprisingly deep sleep when he had slipped out of the loft.

“You’re leaving tomorrow, right?”

Coran stops his cleaning and leans against the bar. His mouth seems to disappear behind his mustache as he looks down at the countertop, and Shiro can see the faint worry lines creased along the bottom of his eyes. There’s a sigh, heavy, and Shiro places his cup down when the sound fades away, the clink of the glass chasing after it as if silence was too heavy a thing to have stretched between them.

Luckily, Coran speaks.                    

“We are. Neither of our livelihoods have much patience for us taking a breather, it seems.” He smiles, a sad upturn, and Shiro lets out a scoff of a laugh. He understands that. “I’m sorry we can’t stay longer.”

Shiro shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

The silence returns. Shiro turns back towards the door and looks up at the clock. It’s almost three in the morning, and the world around them is as it should be at that time: calm, steady, and quiet. The fans are spinning on their lowest setting and the noise from the ice machine, the mechanical hum, sounds off while Shiro waits for Coran to speak again. He can hear how the rag in Coran’s hand squeaks just slightly as it runs against the countertop. The walking upstairs has finally stopped.

“Keith,” Coran starts, and Shiro fights the urge to turn around and see if he’s addressing him. But then Coran’s sighing and Shiro knows – it’s a starter for conversation. “Do you know how long he’s staying?”

He can wager a few guesses. A restlessness tends to paint over Keith’s features in the quiet moments, and Shiro still can’t tell if it’s out of a sense of boredom or a sense of desperation. That maybe he longs for and feels a need to search because he doesn’t feel as if he’s earned a sense of quiet. In a way, Shiro can’t relate, but he’s not sure if he has enough strength to go and uproot his way of living for the second time in his life.

“I’m not sure.” Shiro looks down at the scars on his left hand, watches as his fingers splay out against the bar. “Knowing him, it could be a week, another month. I don’t…” He stops again, words trailing off.

Coran’s watching him with a curious expression.

Shiro doesn’t mind. Even if it’s only been a month and a half, it feels as if it’s been longer. Months. Years. The quiet moments that have stretched between them tends to steal time from the hours he’s working the bar, or when he’s training with his prosthetic exercises. Minutes are dropped from the feeling of time dragging on; Shiro’s noticed that the days seem to get shorter, moving quicker, only to fall back into a slow pace when he’s watching Keith, or when they’re wandering around time in the early hours of the morning to pretend that it’s okay they’re up this late.

“I’m not sure. It’s just nice having Keith around.”

Coran grins. “I should hope so! The boy’s a curious sort, but he’s kind. A little hot-tempered, though, don’t you think?”

Shiro snorts at that, shaking his head. “To be fair, the guy deserved to have Keith go off on him.”

“Can’t argue with you there. I’m still surprised Allura didn’t join in.”

The image of Keith and Allura’s combined tempers flickers in his mind and Shiro, without pause, laughs, the sound a little wheezy. Coran must know what he’s thinking of because he joins in, sparing Shiro with a warm smile when the noise settles down. Shiro swears he hears the door to the loft open but a moment passes and no one walks down the stairs. He shrugs, and takes a drink of his water.

“I’m going to miss this,” Shiro says.

Coran reaches over the counter and, hesitatingly, rests his hand over Shiro’s. Shiro takes a deep breath and lets the jolt run through him. The happiness in Coran’s eyes makes the slight discomfort worth it.

 

 

 

Allura hugs Shiro and Keith goodbye before she boards the bus. Keith hugs her back, a nervous return, and Shiro laughs to himself when Keith looks at him over Allura’s shoulder when she steps away and winds her arms around Shiro’s neck. Coran waits by the doors, holding their bags.

(No mentions that they keep the driver waiting for a few minutes. Shiro hopes he doesn’t mind.)

 

 

 

Shiro sits on the pier and watches as a boat sails along the waves, slowly, as if without a care in the world. The same two-man crew has been out of the water for the last few days, spending their late July mornings fishing out at sea while they’re here on vacation. He knows they don’t keep most of their haul save for a few trout and salmon, preferring the sport over the reward.

He wonders if they’ll come to the bar again after their bonfire tonight to trade more recipes with Asher, to dance with some of the patrons, to sing off-key to karaoke (that Iniel has insisted they keep once a week) around their bottles of beer.

A foot taps against his side. He looks up to see Keith standing beside him, hands in his pockets, bag looped around his back, looking down with a small smile. Sunlight catches in his hair.

“You ready?” Shiro asks. He feels like he’s asking more for himself than for Keith.

Keith bends down and presses his hand into Shiro’s shoulder, using it as leverage to lower himself down. His feet swing over the edge. Shiro doesn’t know if that was an answer, but he takes it as one.

Breaking silence is an art of impatience, and sometimes one of urgency. Words demanding to be heard, or it’s simply the acknowledgement that one is uncomfortable with just the concept of existing in quiet. As Shiro sits, watching as their feet dangle over the ocean, their legs swinging as shadows surfacing on the water, he wonders which one they’ll fall into. Existing – it’s an art as well, but Shiro, as he sits here and watches the ship sail on the horizon, can’t help but wonder that something else is rising to his attention.

Shiro looks out to the boat sailing along the sea, watching as the waves start to settle behind it. They’re slowing down, getting ready to cast out their lines. He hopes they’ll have a decent catch today. Beside him, Keith speaks.

“Are you sure you want me there?”

Shiro stands. Keith doesn’t follow him but his shoulders tense, squaring up. Shiro looks out at the horizon, at the encroaching line of clouds that’s riding low towards the level of the ocean. It’s been a while since it’s rained, the warm sunlight of summer determined to stick around. But it’s almost August, fall is right around the corner, which leads to less crowds, less noise, an overall quieter town.

It’ll rain soon. _So much for taking the motorcycle._

He turns, and walks down the pier. Keith’s steps sound off behind him, stopping their urgency to walk in pace beside him. Shiro can’t help but feel relieved as they walk into town and make their way to the bus stop. The trees scattered throughout town are starting to change color. People are moving out from the sidewalks to clear out from the upcoming rain. When they make it to the bus stop, Shiro’s breathing is heavy, labored, and Keith’s grinning from the impromptu running challenge he just won.

When they board, Shiro and Keith take a seat towards the back of the bus.

The bottom of the sky falls out seconds after the bus begins to move, leaving the town behind. Keith has his eyes closed, leaning back in his seat. It’s faint, but he’s humming something under his breath, and Shiro smiles at the sound as he looks up to the rafters above the seats. There’s nothing there, no belongings left or abandoned. The bus isn’t crowded – the only other person besides the driver is a man sitting towards the front, nose-deep in a fall-themed food magazine.

Rain streams down the windows, creating thin rivets. A distant clap of thunder sounds off, back in the direction of the town. The world has been cast in a blanket of grays, and Shiro wonders absently if the guys on the boat got their ship settled into the harbor in time.

The bus runs over a bump and stutters. Shiro feels Keith’s arm against his own, above his prosthetic.

“What are you supposed to go for?” Keith asks. His eyes are open, looking down towards his knees.

“General therapy. Exercising. Just them making sure I’m not neglecting myself,” Shiro explains, and Keith hums. The tone reminds Shiro that Keith knows how he sleeps, how little he sleeps, how much of his time is devoted into tending to the bar and what little he has left that’s spent halfway on himself.

Shiro wonders if Keith knows he’s helped in letting him take a little bit more for himself.

The bus weaves in and out, traveling along with a small group of cars. The mountains and cliffs are leveling out, settling into the wide, expanding forest Shiro’s come to recognize. It’s blurry through the fog of the rain settled on the window, the clouds settling along the ridges of the mountains, but the leaves are starting to change color here, too – shifting from light greens to reds, yellows, oranges, the shades of autumn making it known that it’s just around the corner.

He yawns. Keith looks to be seconds away from dozing off in his seat.

Digging into his pocket, his hand getting pinched along the zipper, he pulls out his phone and a pair of earbuds, passing one to Keith without a word. Just as quietly, Keith accepts and places it into his ear and waits. Shiro scrolls through his playlists, trying to find something relaxing, something to fit the mood. He settles on an instrumental playlist and feels glad when Keith nods once, approving of the choice.

He wonders if Keith is thinking about his father as he hears the guitar playing, the strings being strummed and plucked to a slow, steady rhythm. He wonders if Keith could play this song.

The bus changes lanes. Shiro counts the minutes and feels his attention to the world around him starting to diminish. Everything is shifting into something simple. Keith’s fingers are drumming along the length of Shiro’s prosthetic arm, tapping out to the rhythm of the music, and Shiro chances and glance and find that’s Keith’s not aware of what he’s doing. It’s fair, he thinks, considering he didn’t even feel himself moving his arm into Keith’s space.

He slips out his earbud and tries not to jostle Keith’s from his ear. Keith’s nails tapping against the metal combines with the sound of the rain hitting the roof of the bus. Sucking in air through his nose, he breathes slow, and next to him, Keith’s hand stills. It rests against Shiro’s wrist, having gone still, fingertips barely brushing the artificial lines of his knuckles.

Keith’s asleep.

Ever since he accident in the hospital, he’s never cared for people touching his hands. Allura’s face, that blatant mix of fear and anger resting in her eyes, flashing in the forefront of his mind whenever someone reaches for him. He remembers how he screamed, how she cried, how it took a few days to apologize for his reaction only to have her sit with him in the hospital bed, their hands twining together in the space between them. And she talked, filling the silence, and Shiro dozed off, high on pain killers, fingers loose in her hold as she ran her thumb over the lines of stitches and bandages.

He thinks back to a few days ago.

The bar had been busy, bustling, with Iniel zipping around the floor at a pace meant for a holiday rush. Shiro was set making a Sidecar for a demanding woman, offering quiet jokes and kind smiles to pacify her frayed nerves; her kids had driven her crazy hours before, and clearly that anger was meant to be unleashed upon whoever she was determined to speak with. The man with the third-shift job and the paperback novel was in his spot, fiddling with the tip jar, when Shiro slid the drink the woman’s way. Now on the phone, she stood, animated, shouting to someone on the other line as the occasional patron spared her performance a glance and an eyeroll, undisturbed by the noise.

When she sat back down, slamming her phone on the counter, she had reached out for her drink and missed, knocking the glass over and sending it to the floor by Shiro’s feet. The thing he knows, he’s on his knees, shaking, she’s apologizing, peering over the counter to look down at the mess and Keith’s there, standing beside him as Shiro’s crouched down, picking at the pieces of wet glass, and he’s shouting at the lady, telling her to move, telling her to back off, anger the sole emotion in his tone.

Everything registered in his vision as blurs, gaps, time stopping and leaping from one point to the next, a hardly-together patchwork timeline that now feels like a heavy weight. The sound of glass shattering had echoed in his mind on a loop as Keith led him up to the loft, leaving Iniel and Asher to settle the crowd and clean up for the night. The sounds stopped only when he sat down, breathing through the panic heavy in his chest, and Keith sat with him, waiting until Shiro’s shoulders settled and his chest heaved on an exhale. He knows it was a weak smile he sent Keith’s way – it’s one of the few clear moments he remembers from last night, aside from Iniel coming up to ask if he was okay.

He’ll have to text him to apologize.

But Keith’s asleep, and he knows that Keith didn’t get much sleep from having to deal with yesterday. There was even breakfast on the table when Shiro woke up, an omelet with cheese and a mug of coffee sweetened with a little too much sugar but warm enough that it was still soothing to drink. No mention of what happened aside from a heavy-set line of frustration lingering along the ridges of Keith’s body.

He’s asleep now. Shiro hits the loop button on his phone to replay the track for him.

 

 

 

“Why did you let me stay?” Keith asks one night, and Shiro looks up from reading on the sofa to see Keith standing across the room, standing underneath the archway of the kitchen with his arms folded across his chest and his head turned towards the loft door. Shiro folds the book on the sealed-up bank statement and tosses it to the coffee table. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and pretends to think as he stares at the shadows on the wooden floor.

The clock tells the time: it’s almost eleven at night. The bar had been closed tonight.

(This conversation feels long overdue.)

Keith walks over and sits down, and Shiro feels Keith shift on the couch, his weight creating a dip in the space between them. He doesn’t hear the clock ticking anymore, and he opens his eyes to see Keith looking at him. He spares Keith a tired smile and feels how the stretch makes his face ache.

“I didn’t let you. You always had a choice.”

Keith looks away. He doesn’t give Shiro an answer or a reply, not immediately. Shiro traces the lines of the rafters as he looks towards the ceiling, letting the silence swallow their conversation. He thinks back to a few days ago, when Iniel came in, sharing news of his sister and her pregnancy. Less than three months away, and she’ll be a mother and Iniel an uncle to a boy. Shiro had texted Coran the news and the response was enough to make Iniel laugh to the point of tearing up when he showed the screen to his co-worker.

Ever since the day Keith went with him to the next town over for his appointment, the bar’s been calm. Steady. Keith’s helped fixed a few leaks in the roof, Shiro’s got a new set of drinks on the menu inspired by Keith’s talk of constellations one night when they went out for a walk, and the working television is now a constant running staple for the establishment. Shiro knows he should worry about the cable bill at this point but he can’t bring himself to care, not when the people are happy and that he comes downstairs to the bar now in the early hours of the afternoon to watch Keith watching ghost haunting dramas and travel channels.

The day they came back from Shiro’s appointment, Keith said he traveled because he felt lost. Drawn out to the road, to the way of life of depending on himself and only himself. Shiro can relate, although he envies Keith’s courage for taking the chance to move. He never gave himself the chance to move.

But he knows, believes, that Keith’s had a choice to stay. Shiro has never wanted to make himself an obligation. He knows how Keith carries himself in his words and the way he walks. He knows how he takes his coffee, and that he likes his meat a bit on the rare side. He knows that the quiet moments between them mean a lot to him, for reasons Shiro can only guess. He knows Keith’s had a choice to stay and, ever since they met, he’s stayed.

Shiro laughs to himself and it catches Keith’s attention. He settles back against the cushions and feels the way the bare skin of his left arm prickles with goosebumps from the lingering chill in the loft.

“Thanks, Keith.”

Keith doesn’t respond. When Shiro looks over, he’s smiling.

“You too, Shiro.”

 

 

 

Keith’s spinning the dial on a disposable camera when Shiro asks, “So you’re going tomorrow?”

Arms hanging over the back of a bench, Shiro looks up to the sky. It’s a mix of pink and blue, the clouds thin, painting the world in shades of pastel. Like a watercolor painting, Shiro thinks, as he watches people walk along the edge of the water. They’ve been walking for a while, one particular couple, engaged in a lively conversation that seems to get happier and happier the more laps they make on the sand. Shiro envies them, but he's fine, too - right now, sitting here with Keith.

The camera clicks. Keith’s facing the lens towards him. It’s the second time today.

Shiro glares, unimpressed. Keith lowers the camera and answers him as if nothing happened.

“Yeah.”

Fiddling with his right sleeve, pulling the fabric away from the metal of his arm, he watches as Keith messes with the camera. His father’s influence, if Shiro had to take a guess as to why he has one with him in the first place, or maybe he’s set on having pictures to match the memories of his travels. And yet Keith doesn’t strike him as overly sentimental, instead trusting his own mind over the world around him, but the thought of Keith keeping a picture of him, a face to a memory, does makes him happy.

Even since he read his father's article of going back home, there's been an undertone of restlessness in his moments. Shiro's not stupid, he knows - the road is tempting. There's been many times where he's been tempted to hop on his motorcycle and run from this town. But he's still here, in this town. He pretends he's okay with that.

Keith snaps a picture of a nearby seagull, watching as the bird trills and waddles along the shoreline. It’s pecking at the ground, at the scrap of pizza crust Keith threw to the ground at the end of their lunch.

“You know I’m not kicking you out, right?”

Keith shrugs. “But you aren’t stopping me.”

Shiro grins. “Because I know you're always welcome to come back.”

Keith doesn't respond. A stranger waves at them, a patron from the bar that always asks for a dartboard to be hung along the walls. (He's still mulling over that idea; the space isn't that big for projectiles to be introduced, honestly.) Shiro waves back before he lets his arms drape back along the top of the bench. The camera clicks once, twice, focused on the pier a distance away on their right. Someone drives along the road behind them, heavy metal music blaring through the speakers. He hasn’t looked away yet, and Keith’s watching him now, intently, with a relaxed expression.

Click. Another picture of himself. Shiro wonders what he’s wanting to get out of taking all these pictures. And then Keith’s sliding the camera his way, dropping it into his hands. Shiro watches as he leans back on the bench, looking out at the world around him. His head is tilted up towards the sky and Shiro wonders if he’s trying to find the constellations in the sky, the stars pinpointed behind the cover of the sunset. He’ll have to make one of those new drinks tonight, as a send-off for him. Something cool and cozy, to pair off with the mid-August weather.

Smiling, intent clear in his movements, Shiro winds the dial and aims the lens in Keith’s direction. Through the focus, Keith is staring out at the water now. Hair windswept, expression calm. Shiro holds his breath as his finger hovers over the button.

Keith looks over and Shiro smiles. “Never change, Keith.”

The shutter clicks.

 

 

 

It’s four in the morning when Shiro steps out from his room and into the loft. He’s fully dressed but without his arm, his prosthetic safely put away in his room, and he feels the difference acutely, how the weight on both sides of his body are uneven. Keith is on the couch, sketching something in his sketchbook, and Shiro finds that he’s surprise when he leans over the edge of the couch and Keith keeps the book open.

It’s unfinished, but it’s a sketch of the bar. No one is behind it, manning it, but Shiro knows someone was there once, that the idea of drawing a person was settled into Keith’s mind at the sight of a half-finished drink resting on the counter, sketched in thicker lines to stand out from the rows of bottles along the back shelves. Even though it’s unfinished, it’s dated and signed. Shiro smiles.

“Let me know when you’re ready.”

As an answer, Keith flips the sketchbook closed and slings his bag over his shoulder.

He’s wearing that blue jean coat, and the NASA pin that was attached to his bag is now on the breast pocket of his coat; Shiro wonders when he made that switch. He looks comfortable, if a little tired, standing next to the couch, standing in the center of the loft and looking up at Shiro with an expression Shiro isn’t sure he wants to understand.

Then Keith looks down to where Shiro’s jacket sleeve is empty from the upper arm down.

(It’s the first time he’s let himself be without his arm in front of someone in a long time.)

He doesn’t mention it. Instead he nods, and Shiro follows Keith downstairs to the bar and out into the town. Keith flips the sign to closed as Shiro locks the door, and he misses the mechanical whirring of his arm, the noise he’s grown accustomed to for a few years now. But he’s grown used to Keith being there, staying with him, sharing meals as simply as they’ve shared a bed (and Shiro tries not to think how Keith never went back to the couch after Coran and Allura left, and how Shiro tends to gravitate towards one side now when he finally falls into bed for the night after a long day. He tries not to think about how many times they’ve met in the middle, or the mornings when he’s woken up to discover he’s being used a pillow.)

He’s used to Keith. He’s gotten used to how he likes folding his clothes and how he carries himself when walking past strangers on the sidewalk. How he cooks with an amateur flourish and talks excitedly about the stars around them, a passion that Shiro feels easily rivals his own, a passion not hindered by grief. He’s used to the extra noise in the loft, the sound of someone else breathing in the quiet hours of the morning, the jokes about Keith sleeping with a knife under a pillow and the comments about Shiro’s hair going through a mid-life crisis before he is.

He laughs to himself. Keith looks over but says nothing.

The earliest bus comes at six. Which is why he’s not surprised when Keith doesn’t turn in that direction, instead cutting through town to head towards the harbor, the cliffs, the spot on the coastline where it’s nothing but the sea, the stars, and the quiet. Fitting, Shiro thinks, as he lets Keith take the lead.

The sails don’t move, the salty breeze absent from the air. Shiro feels sweat sticking to the back of his neck that he wipes away, following and climbing after Keith as their steps sound off underneath concrete to soon transition to rock and gravel. The sky is caught between dawn, a sunrise slowly changing the colors of the night sky from the horizon up, and Shiro, as he climbs, wonders how long the stars will stay in view.

Keith stops at the top. Shiro stops beside him. They’re connected at the shoulders, with Keith to his right. The sky is painted black, with specks of gold and blues peeking along the horizon. Stardust colors a cluster of stars in the top right and Shiro takes a moment to place a name to the constellation.

Keith doesn’t move, looking out at the ocean.

They’ve mastered the art of quiet silence, a comfortable existence of just being. Or so Shiro hopes, feels, knowing the ease in his chest wouldn’t exist if his relationship with Keith wasn’t built on quiet companionship and the like-minded knowledge that the world is a strange enough place without them in it, and that Shiro without his arm and Keith without a home are fine enough with existing outside of that world.

“I’ll come back,” Keith says after a moment. It's not a question this time.

Shiro believes him.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he replies, and leans into Keith.

He feels Keith’s hand rest along his shoulder, his arm passing over the length of his spine, and he breathes. The salt in the air stings in his lungs and he’s tired, he’s still tired, but he’s happy. Keith’s looking at him, towards him, before he’s looking back in the direction of the town, and Shiro can only wonder what he’s thinking, if he’ll be lonely, if he knows Shiro will be lonely when Keith boards that bus and leaves.

They stand there for a while. Keith rests his head against Shiro’s arm. Shiro loses count of how many stars he’s found before his eyes start to blur, vision breaking apart on a yawn. The empty sleeve of his coat flutters in the breeze that picks up, wrapping around Keith’s waist in return. Keith, after a moment,  takes a deep breath, the sound lost in the noise of the ocean waves brushing against the cliffs. Shiro turns and finds himself in an embrace, short-lived, but enough that his body jolts, the contact seeping a sense of comfort into his viens. Keith sighs into his jacket and Shiro wishes he knew what he was thinking.

On the horizon, a new day starts as the sun begins to rise. And then Keith's stepping back, smiling, and walking down the worn down cliffside. Shiro doesn't watch him go, instead turning back towards the sunrise.

A minute passes. He calls out, voice steady, strong: "I'll be here." There's no reply.

But he's sure Keith heard him.


End file.
